“But this is her apartment.” I knew the address from the court papers. “How did Daniel get in? If he didn’t have much of a relationship, you wouldn’t think he’d have a key.”
“Nope. The super opened up for him. Now he’s stonewalling me.”
Mike pressed the buzzer with the paper marker labeled Gersh next to the mailbox for 2D. It took almost three minutes for a voice to respond through the intercom.
“Yes?”
“I’m still here, Daniel. I’d like to talk to you.”
“What about that warrant, Detective?”
“I got one right here. A living, breathing warrant. Meet Assistant DA Alex Cooper. Open up, Daniel. This is a condolence call, not a strip search.”
There was another short hesitation before the buzzer sounded. Mike entered, climbing the steps in front of me. When we reached 2D, the door was ajar and the chain was bolted across the opening.
“Let me see your papers.”
“I realize this is a difficult day,” I said, “but we don’t need a warrant. You have no legal standing to keep us out of your sister’s apartment. We’re simply here to talk to you.”
“Me, I’m the battering-ram type, Daniel. Works every time and it gets the neighbors’ attention. Coop here favors the more polite approach.” Mike pressed his arm against the door to test its give.
Daniel pushed it closed and removed the chain.
“May we come in?” I asked.
He shrugged and stepped back to let us enter.
Mike scoped the room — a large studio apartment lined with brick and board bookshelves, with little more in it than a double bed against the wall, a pair of beanbag chairs, a couple of crates that served as a living area, and a tiny kitchenette. Two doors were opened in the back, revealing a bathroom and a closet. I introduced myself to Daniel, trying to figure whether his reserve was grief or a natural shyness as I expressed my sympathy for his sister’s brutal death.
“May I sit down?”
“Yeah, sure.” He motioned to the chairs, but I chose the side of the bed. I knew I would sink into the shape-shifting beans and end up below eye level with him. Daniel wasn’t ready to sit, answering me but keeping a watch on Mike.
“I’ve got a lot of questions about Naomi that I’d like to ask you,” I said. “Is there anything you want to know before we begin?”
“Nah. The cops told me the stuff about her body,” he said. “I really don’t want to hear any more of that.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“What do you do?”
“Right now I’m a prop guy. Move scenery and equipment at a theater. I’m supposed to start acting classes in the summer.”
“Have you worked at the show very long?”
“It’s a temp job,” he said, scratching his sandy brown hair, which hung below the collar of his sweatshirt in a long, tangled snarl. “I only moved to New York in the fall.”
“From?. .”
“Chicago. I lived near Chicago with my mother.”
“Does she know about Naomi yet?” I asked, hoping to distract Daniel while Mike lifted a suitcase out of the closet.
“She’s my mother. Not Naomi’s,” Daniel said. “You mind leaving her luggage alone, Detective?”
“All packed up and ready to go,” Mike said. “Your sister do that, or you?”
“Just don’t touch it, okay?” Daniel Gersh walked toward Mike. He was tall and well built, with a jangly kind of energy that made him appear skittish and nervous.
“Ms. Cooper’s talking to you.” Mike backed off the suitcase and walked over to the windowed wall that housed the sink and small oak dining table.
The apartment was neat and clean. I knew it would be gone over by crime-scene detectives and was confident — as Mike was— that Daniel wasn’t leaving with the suitcase or any other property of his late sister’s, if that was what he had come here to do. Nothing appeared to be out of place. It didn’t look like the young woman had been butchered in her home.
“Can I just get you to focus on some questions that would help us try to figure out what happened to Naomi?” I said.
“Then stop asking about me, okay? What do you want to know about her?”
“Why don’t you start with the family background?”
Daniel had planted himself in the middle of the room. “Naomi’s a lot older than I am. Seven years. My father — our father, I mean — he met her mother in college. Got her pregnant and her family put a lot of pressure on them to get married. So they did. But it didn’t last very long. Like a year after Naomi was born, it was over.”
I could hear the rustling noise as Mike pulled back the shower curtain in the bathroom, and Daniel hurried over to look at what he was doing.
“The toilet’s still running,” Mike said. “What’d you flush before you let us in?”
Daniel held up his arms as if puzzled. “Like, what are you talking about? Maybe it’s just broken.”
“Drugs? Pills? Why’re you so jumpy, Daniel?”
“I’m not jumpy, man. I’m still, like, shocked about this.”
“Then answer Ms. Cooper’s questions.”
“I take it your father remarried,” I said. “Did you and Naomi grow up near each other?”
“At first, yeah.” Daniel settled himself in, leaning against the refrigerator and lighting a cigarette. “My mom and dad lived in a suburb of Chicago. Naomi’s mother taught at the university for a while — they lived in Hyde Park. Then, like my dad said, she was always trying to find herself.”
“Naomi’s mother?”
“Yeah. Her name was Rachel. My dad used to joke that he was glad she did eventually find herself — and that it was as far away from him as possible.” Daniel inhaled and smiled, his affect as inappropriate to the situation as his remarks.
“Where did they go?” I asked.
“They made aliyah, Ms. Cooper. You know what that is?”
“They immigrated to Israel.” I knew the Hebrew word that was a basic tenet of Zionism and would explain the Israeli Law of Return to Mike later on. It allowed anyone of Jewish descent the right to settle in Israel, to return to the Promised Land.
“Rachel took Naomi away with her? There wasn’t a custody battle?”
“Not from what my mom says. By that time my father was already — um, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease when I was pretty young. He died when I was twelve, and no, he wasn’t really interested in Naomi. Or me, for that matter. He was too sick to do much of anything.”
“Did you stay in touch with your sister?” I asked.
Daniel didn’t seem to object to my calling her that, as separate as he tried to paint their lives. He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Sometimes. She came back to the States when our dad died. Stayed with my mother and me for a few months, but they didn’t have much to say to each other. Naomi went off to college after that, in London.”
“Do you know what she studied?”
“Yeah. Philosophy. Philosophy and religion. I think she wanted to — tried to — have some kind of relationship with me. She used to send me things all the time.”
“What kind of things?”
“Letters. Souvenirs and shit like that whenever she traveled.”
“Tell me about the letters, Daniel.”
“I don’t remember much. Naomi was trying to be all grown up and intellectual, and me, I was just a goofy kid. Just read them and threw them out.”
“Shhhhhhh,” Mike said, placing his forefinger against his lips. “Hear it?”
“Hear what?” I asked.
“The quiet.” Mike was getting right up in Daniel’s face. “Think of the money you’ll save, Daniel. Plumbers charge almost as much an hour as good defense lawyers.”
“So what?”
“So the toilet stopped running. Not a long-standing problem in the pipes, I wouldn’t think. Why won’t you tell me what you flushed?”