“Yes. You know dogs.”
“Okay. Then you turned back.”
“Right. And that’s when I heard her barking, to the left, and then I saw her down the hill.”
“So you were on the path?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” I said, doing my best Columbo. I looked at Rollins. “You see the problem?”
Rollins shrugged. “There’s a problem?”
“Yeah, don’t you remember that hill? I couldn’t see a thing from the path. Hill’s too steep.”
“Really,” said Rollins, and I could tell he saw where I was going. He played it just right. “You couldn’t?”
“No,” I said, and looked back at Gold, whose face was stony. “I couldn’t, and I’m pretty tall. So how could you see the dog?”
A blotch of crimson stained Gold’s throat. “Maybe I left the path. I don’t remember.”
“That would explain it,” said Rollins.
“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” I said. “Because there’s no way to see down that hill. But then . . . ”
“Yes, Detective?” Gold’s tone was neutral.
“Your clothes. You didn’t have any burrs. I had burrs on my coat. The dog had burrs.”
“I had burrs,” said Rollins.
“You didn’t have any burrs,” I said to Gold. “But you should have. Your shoes weren’t even wet.”
Gold looked from me to Rollins and back again. “Are you accusing me of something, Detective? If you are, I should have a lawyer.”
“I’m just trying to clear up a discrepancy, Miss Gold.”
“No, you’re not.” She leaned forward, getting into my space, not intimidated in the slightest. “Listen to me. I did not kill that child. Now, I’m sorry if you and Detective Rollins can’t find anyone to blame . . . ”
“Hey,” said Rollins.
Her gaze didn’t waver, and I felt her take control. “But just because I may have made a mistake on where I was standing, or didn’t have garbage on my clothes, doesn’t mean I did anything wrong. Someone killed that little boy, and it wasn’t me.”
I tried to recoup. “You know who kills little babies, Miss Gold? It’s not only their daddy, or their mommy’s coked-up boyfriend, or some sick sex predator-creep. I’ll tell who kills little babies: mothers. Sometimes that mother is depressed and suicidal and wants to take her child to a better place. Sometimes that mother wants attention. So she makes her child sick, and then there are all those doctors, and she feels important. And then there are mothers who are simply evil.”
“Evil,” said Gold. For the first time, I saw not defiance but astonishment cross Gold’s features. “Is that what you think? You think that’s my baby?”
Actually, until that moment, that’s exactly what I’d thought. All I’d seen her in were baggy clothes, for one. And pieces of her story didn’t fit. But Gold’s reaction was genuine. You can’t do a hundred million hours of interrogations and not know when someone’s honestly amazed.
Gold gave a mirthless laugh. “I can’t believe this. There are tests, right? To prove maternity?”
“Yes,” I said, knowing already what we’d find. “DNA that we—”
“Fine.” Gold held out her arms. “Which one?”
She wasn’t the mother.
My condo’s off Lee Highway, in Arlington. I grew up in DC and now I work it. I can’t live there. On the way home, I bought Thai takeout and then picked up a six-pack of icy-cold Bangkok beer. I ate my pad Thai out of the carton, had a beer. Then I popped a second beer, put on Mingus, and settled into my favorite—my only—recliner. I sleep there a lot. I don’t know any single guy sleeps in his bed. We sleep on couches, chairs. Never the bed. And in our clothes, usually.
Rabbi Dietterich had given me a book on Kabbalah. Then, as we had shaken hands, he said, “I have often thought about Detective Lennox. His death, such a tragedy. You and I both know there are demons and monsters everywhere. Nazis, murderers. But what are not so easy are the monsters that are hidden.” Dietterich bunched his fists and brought them to his chest. “The ones in here, in the dark chambers of the heart. Detective Lennox was a Jew, but he had no faith, and he found his monsters. Or they found him. Hashem can help, but a man must have faith, and he must work. We Jews are not like you Christians. We don’t believe that Hashem makes everything better. Hashem can be harsh. Life is sometimes unfair. But we believe that Hashem gives us a fighting chance.”
He clapped a hand to my right shoulder. “You’re a good man, Detective Saunders. An honest man. Please take care not to let your monsters destroy you.”
Now, thumbing to the index, I found a section on demons and paged there. The Kabbalists were big believers in an unseen spirit world, with some rabbis claiming that demons are consigned to a dark netherworld, and others stating that demons are born from sex between humans and demonic spirits. The rabbis agreed on six demonic attributes. In common with angels, demons have wings, can fly from one end of the earth to another, and tell the future. Like humans, however, they need food and water. They have sex. And, unlike the angels, they’re mortal.
I flipped to a section on regional beliefs. I found North Africa, the Near East. But this leapt off the page:
One of the most comprehensive works is the Zefunei Ziyyoni. Written in the late fourteenth century by Menachem Zion of Cologne, this book has the most extensive list of important demons and how they functioned. This German-born Kabbalist was influential in disseminating Arabic thought amongst the practical Kabbalists concentrated in Eastern Europe and Germany.
There it was: the practical Kabbalists. Translation: the witches. And Germany.
Something sparked in my brain. Quickly, I went to my coat and pulled out the packet of autopsy photos Kay had given me, flipping until I found the one of the tattoo.
To this day, I don’t know how I got there. There was no logic. The sensation truly was a flash: like a bare bulb flaring to life in a dark basement. And then I knew.
I checked the index. But what I was looking for wasn’t under R. It was under G: for “gilgul.”
I spent the rest of the night reading, thinking. I went online and did a search. It took time, but I found what I was looking for. Compared the information to what I had. As soon as the museums opened, I made a couple calls. The employment stuff was easy, even the call to Sydney, though it was evening there and the director a little grumpy until I went over what I wanted and why.
Then I called the Holocaust Museum. The information clerk funneled me to an archivist. When I explained, there was a moment’s silence. Then the archivist said, “Not many people know about that. Unfortunately, those early records are lost. I’m sorry.”
Then I made one last call. She picked up on the third ring. “Hello, Detective. No magic: caller ID. What do you want?”
I told her where to meet me. “Should I bring my lawyer?” she asked.
“No. I just want to talk.”
“I’ll be there,” she said, and hung up.
My office away from the office: the bar’s across the street from the Shakespeare Theatre on 7th and diagonal to Jaleo’s, a Spanish tapas place where the beautiful people eat before going to the theatre. So I never go there.
I saw her come in, look around, start toward me. Her coat was open, and she wore a beige skirt that came to her knees, a cream linen blouse, and linen pumps. She had the pendant. When she’d slid onto the cushioned bench opposite mine and shrugged out of her coat, we did the waitress thing—bourbon for me, white wine for her.