After about twenty minutes on the Thruway, I see signs for Roseville. It occurs to me, as I pull into the vast lot outside of the Target-anchored shopping center, that escaping strip malls like this has been an unexpected perk of leaving Florida. I guess when they first got built somebody imagined that because all the stores are connected by a walkway, the Panera Bread and the Rite Aid and the Foot Locker and the Pier 1 might simulate a kind of neighborhood. But now that I’ve moved to New York City, I understand that a real neighborhood is one that can’t be planned, but that grows like a field of wildflowers from whatever blows in and has the fortitude to survive.
The Starbucks is just inside the automatic glass doors of the Target, across from rows of red shopping carts. Nechemaya, or a man I assume to be Nechemaya because he is the only person I see wearing the ultra-Orthodox uniform, is sitting alone at a two-top with a venti-sized paper cup in front of him, typing intently on his smartphone.
“Mr. Burstein?” I say
He looks up. “Rebekah? Hello, yes. Thank you for coming.” He pushes back his chair and stands up.
I hate not shaking hands with people I meet; it feels like our interaction is incomplete, somehow. But I guess if I’m going to report in the Haredi world I better get used to it. “I’m gonna grab some coffee real quick,” I say. “You good?”
He nods. I wait in line behind a woman in a pink tracksuit talking on the phone to someone with whom she disagrees, and in front of a man with a gray ponytail and John Lennon-style eyeglasses carrying a shopping basket full of recycled toilet paper. At the counter, as I mix in milk, I watch Nechemaya. He takes a manila folder out of the black bag at his feet and places it in front of him on the table. With his left hand, he cups the lower half of his face and smooths his beard.
I sit down and he puts his hands over the folder. I take out my notebook.
“I do not wish to have my name in the newspaper,” he says. “I am not coming to you because I wish to bring attention to myself.”
“Okay,” I say. “I won’t publish anything you tell me now. But can we discuss the possibility again in the future?”
Nechemaya nods. His face is very round, and his beard, though several inches in length, is thin enough that the pale skin beneath it shows through. The beard is not an attractive addition to his face, but I suppose its aesthetic qualities don’t enter into his decision to wear it.
“I have some information I hope you will follow up on. After Pessie Goldin was buried, the man and woman who live in the apartment above hers contacted me. They told me that the day Pessie died the wife saw a strange vehicle-a pickup truck-parked across the street from their building.”
“What do you mean by ‘strange’?”
“I mean unfamiliar,” he says. “It was not a vehicle they had seen before. She said several neighbors saw the truck, too, but she was the only one who thought to write down the license plate number. She gave it to me and I gave it to the police, as well as contact information for the woman who saw the vehicle. About two weeks later, I learned the police had not contacted the woman or, as far as she knew, any neighbors, for an interview. I called and I was told that they could not discuss the case.”
“You talked to Chief Gregory?”
“Yes. I consulted with the other members of chevra kadisha, and the Roseville shomrim, and we decided to take the information to Pessie’s family. Myself and another member sat down with her father and mother last week, but they did not wish to pursue it further. They did not want more scrutiny on the family. They have four children younger than Pessie who still need to make shidduch. There are rumors that Pessie was taking drugs.”
“Drugs? You mean medication?”
“Medication?”
“Levi told me Pessie had been taking antidepressants.”
“That may have been what they were referring to. Truthfully, I do not know if they actually believe she had been involved in drugs or if they are just afraid of the rumors. They said Pessie was gone and there was nothing that would bring her back. But when I saw that Levi had spoken out about his suspicions, I contacted him and he gave me your phone number.” He pushes the folder toward me. “I gave this information to the Roseville police chief. Now I am giving it to you.”
I open the folder and inside find a single piece of lined yellow legal paper, torn in half. On it is written, in what I assume is Nechemaya’s hand, New York LCG6732.
“The neighbors said the truck was blue and white. They could not provide a make or model.”
“Did they see anyone get in or out?”
“No. She said she had been in the back of the apartment and only happened to walk by the front window as the truck was leaving.”
“Would she be willing to talk to me? I don’t necessarily have to use her name. I could just refer to her as a neighbor.”
“Possibly,” says Nechemaya.
“I’d also like to talk to some people who knew Pessie. I know it sounds a little crass, but the more the readers know about her the more they will care, and the more they care, the more likely it is that the newspaper will let me keep covering the story. I tried calling her parents, but the woman who answered the phone hung up on me. Do you know any of her friends?”
“I don’t, but I will make some phone calls. And I believe the neighbors knew her fairly well. I will ask if they are available for an interview.”
“Great,” I say. “I can even do it over the phone if that’s better for them.”
Nechemaya nods. I fold the piece of paper and put it into my notebook.
“Why do you think the police chief never followed up on this?”
Nechemaya draws a shallow breath and flares his nostrils. “It is not like Brooklyn here in Rockland County. These people still think they can make us leave.” He shifts in his chair, agitated. “This chief… I have heard him say in council meetings that he does not work for us because we do not pay taxes.”
“You don’t pay taxes?”
“Of course we pay taxes!” he says, a little too loudly. “Everyone pays taxes. But people are ignorant and it is easy to believe stories about us. We look different. Our children do not attend their schools. We do not mix with them so they assume we are bad.”
“You said on the phone that you thought Pessie’s death might be part of some kind of plot. What makes you think that?”
“There have been several instances of vandalism, and two of our young men were attacked along the road.”
“Attacked?”
“Bottles were thrown at them by a passing car as they walked. Again, we reported the incident and nothing was done.”
“When was this?”
“January. The boys did not get a good look at the vehicle, or the occupants, so the chief said there was nothing he could do. The vandalism was at one of our yeshivas. Someone spraypainted a swastika and the words ‘go home.’ In Catskill, a woman attacked two Chassidish men at a grocery store. She spat on them and yelled slurs.”
“And you think this might be related to Pessie’s death?”
“How can we know if there is no investigation!” The woman sipping a Frappuccino next to us looks over. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at me as if we share some similar understanding about how ridiculous people dressed like Nechemaya are. How unlike her and me. How downright weird. They cast themselves as “other” so it’s easy to see them as such. But easy is lazy. I meet the woman’s eyes with an expression like, what? You got a problem?