Then Suri told her about the many calls back and forth to Wendy Lotte, the wedding planner, because the Ribikoffs had been so difficult about the final lists. People who hadn't been invited were coming. People who said they were coming couldn't come. Not only that, Schmuel's father was allergic to fish, nuts, and gluten and didn't want anything with those ingredients at the dinner. That was about as difficult as people could get.
"Nothing with flour!" Suri was still reeling over it. "It was a nightmare. Why couldn't they have told us that before?"
April noted everything, their trips to Manhattan to meet with the florist, a person improbably called Louis the Sun King, and with the caterer to constantly revamp the menu. Their meetings with Wendy Lotte, and their visits with Tang Ling and her fitter Kim. Suri went with her mother, Belle, most often. When necessary, they took Tovah with them.
"Tovah didn't always go with you?" April asked.
"It was so tiring." The two women exchanged glances.
"Tiring? Tovah was a young woman."
"She had migraines."
"What was her mood in the last few days?"
"Except for the migraines, she was fine."
"Was she anxious about getting married? You said she had no experience with boys."
Suri looked exasperated. "I went to college. I dated. What's so great?"
"She was not anxious," the grandmother insisted. "Every girl wants to get married. Who wants to be an old maid?"
April hid her ringless ring finger under her notebook.
But maybe not everybody wants to be married at eighteen.
April had barely graduated from high school at eighteen.
Then Suri launched into an explanation of their preparations for the Sabbath, the reason she'd hired a party planner. "I start on Wednesday. For a family this size, we need ten loaves of bread, six chickens, fish. I cook everything myself and always do five courses. I couldn't do that and a wedding too," she explained.
Such elaborate cooking and arrangements for a twenty-four-hour period every week! It was as bad as being Chinese.
"This was my first break in nineteen years. My husband owed it to me," Suri said tearfully.
"Can you think of anyone who disliked your daughter, Mrs. Schoenfeld?"
"Rich and pretty girls always excite envy," Suri said smoothly. "I know that from my own experience. But it couldn't be one of us. Jews don't have guns." She was certain about that.
"One more thing. Did you notice anyone leaving the sanctuary before the ceremony? Someone from either family missing?"
"Oh, I have no idea. The only person I couldn't find when we came in was Wendy. I needed her to do something. I looked for her, but she wasn't around. Can I go back in the house now?"
Wendy again. April nodded. "How long do you sit shivah?"
"Seven days," Suri said. "I don't know how I'll get through it."
"You will," April assured her. Somehow they always did.
Sixteen
C
hing didn't watch Channel Twelve all day to keep track of all the terrible crimes that happened in New York City and April's role in solving them, but her mother Mai Ma Dong did. Mai followed April's career with avid interest, collecting the news clippings about her cases and recounting her successes in the police department to her daughter and anyone else who would listen. To Mai, her own daughter was a difficult rebel, but Sai's daughter was a real star. Sai, of course, felt exactly the opposite.
When they were little, the two best-friend mothers took turns dragging Ching and April to Chinese school on weekends to learn calligraphy and other Chinese arts. They'd taken them to martial-arts classes and taught them to cook traditional meals. Ching had incurred her mother's wrath by not being interested in any of it. She'd been the math genius and longed for escape from the narrowness of Chinatown. April had been the fighting beauty, the black belt who won all the matches—the stay-at-home who supported her parents and went to college at night. To Mai, who'd missed Ching when she was away in California for many years, April remained the loyal daughter and became the famous cop she saw on TV.
Mai was the one who sighted April and Mike during the coverage of the terrible shooting in the Bronx. They were coming out of the house of a murdered bride shaking their heads. "No comment at this time." And right away she called Ching at work to warn her.
"Bad luck," she cried. "Terrible luck to happen just before your wedding."
Oh, God.
This was the last thing Ching wanted to think about. "It's the Bronx, Ma. A Jewish wedding. Nothing to do with us."
"Poor April," Mai wailed. "Bad luck for her."
"No, no, Ma. Don't say that."
"Yes, yes, now she'll never get married," Mai predicted unhappily.
"But this is her job. One thing has nothing to do with the other!" Ching argued.
"I don't know. Bad luck," Mai insisted.
The reasoning was nuts. "Come on, terrible things happen every day; that doesn't mean they'll happen to us."
"You better call April," Mai concluded. "Tell her."
"Tell her what, Ma?"
"No more murders before the wedding," Mai said.
Ching groaned. Oh, sure, as if April could keep the whole city crimeless for ten whole days.
"Okay, Ma. I'll tell her." She hung up and scratched the side of her mouth the way she did when she was troubled. Her mother was a management problem at the best of times. April was not so easy, either. All Ching wanted to do was keep her mother quiet for a few more days, and get April away from her work long enough to be her maid of honor. She wanted to have a happy wedding, and go on her well-deserved honeymoon to Venice.
Seventeen
Wendy checked her caller ID. When she saw it was Kim again, she smiled at the two detectives in her living room and dropped the ringing cell phone back in her pocket.
"I'm devastated to have missed the funeral. I called this morning to see what I could do to help, but no one picked up." Wendy appraised the two cops. A Chinese woman, young, very attractive. No wedding ring. She noticed these things. A Hispanic man with a mustache like the other detective. No wedding ring either. Like the Bronx detective, these two were dressed in plain clothes and didn't look terribly intelligent. Wendy didn't know she was just slightly dulled with drink. She always felt she could talk her way through anything no matter how much hooch was in her. And she'd had plenty of experience with both cops and vodka.
"I had no idea they'd bury her so fast. It's so difficult with all these restrictions." She hurriedly ticked them off on her fingers. "No communication on Friday after dark until Saturday after dark. That's twenty-four whole hours of every week out the window. Believe me, that can be quite a hurdle when you have details that need attention. I had to learn all this. I've never done Orthodox before. You know anything about them?"
"No, tell us," the Chinese said.
"No answering the phone when you're in mourning. Who would think of it? I can't imagine how the arrangements get done." Wendy lifted her eyes heavenward. "Not that I'm judgmental about customs. I work with all kinds of people," she amended quickly. Now the phone rang in her office. She ignored it.
"How do arrangements get done?"
"I gather there's some sort of temple fellowship that takes care of everything so the family doesn't have to think about it. They don't allow flowers." Wendy glanced at her watch, blew air out of her mouth to control her impatience.
"I asked the caterer to help. They're a very nice kosher couple, by the way. They wanted to know what to do with the food from yesterday. No one ate. Mr. Schoenfeld didn't want to
pay
for it after what happened, so I told the Goldsteins to take that food right over to the house and set it up for the shivah." Wendy was proud of this maneuver. The delivery of the food was done in the guise of kindness, and she knew Mr. Schoenfeld would have no choice about paying for it now. Luckily she'd learned a long time ago to take her own cuts up front and in commissions along the way. A lot of vendors could go unpaid for this kind of disaster.