Beside Still Waters (Psalm 23 Mysteries)

  ~

  It’s good to be a rabbi, Jeremiah reflected to himself as he greeted people after the Shabbat service. The sun was shining brightly outside and children’s laughter drifted into the building. Everyone was in a good mood and telling him how helpful they’d found his comments on the day’s Torah reading.

  It was nice when it was like this. Some days just seemed made for happiness. The only thing that would have made it better would have been the promise of a late night meal with Cindy. He was glad she had finally taken the trip to Hawaii, though. If anyone needed, deserved, a vacation it was her.

  “Rabbi,” a wizened old man said, grasping his hand with shaking fingers. “It is good I came here today.”

  “We are pleased you made your way to us.”

  “I think, I think you are the person I need to talk to.”

  “I’d be happy to listen to whatever it is you wish to speak about.”

  The old man looked around, bright eyes furtive. “Not now. Not here.”

  “I am available weekdays in my office,” Jeremiah said.

  The old man nodded quickly. “Good, ja. Danke. I will come on Wednesday.”

  “If you have a card I can have my secretary call you to set a time,” Jeremiah suggested.

  The old man shook his head fiercely. “Das glaube ich nicht. Nein. I will come Wednesday morning and then...then we have much to discuss.”

  The old man shook his head and then turned and walked away.

  Jeremiah couldn’t help but stare after him. He had never seen the man before but it was not uncommon for visitors to the area to attend services in the synagogue. Something about the man’s demeanor troubled him, though, even more than the fact that he was speaking German.

  “Who was that?” Marie, Jeremiah’s secretary asked as she walked up beside him.

  “Apparently someone who wants to speak with me. He’ll be coming by the office Wednesday morning.”

  “Did you get his name?” she asked, voice laced with suspicion.

  He smiled at her. “No, but do not worry, Marie. I’m sure such an old man is harmless.”

  His words seemingly placated her but they did nothing to calm his own mind. He turned aside to greet a young couple and did his best to put it from his thoughts.

  Whatever the old man had to say would have to wait until Wednesday. Just like dinner with Cindy would have to wait until Tuesday.

  ~

  Three hours later Cindy felt like she was going to drop from exhaustion. She’d answered all of Officer Li’s questions at least four times. Then she’d had to go through it all over again with Detective Robinson when he arrived. She was beginning to feel that one of the worst things about being a witness was being made to feel like a suspect when the police questioned you like they did.

  “I think that about does it,” Detective Robinson said at last, snapping shut his notebook.

  “I’d like to go back to my hotel now,” she said.

  “Sure, I’ll take you,” he said, moving to stand up.

  Standing next to him she was overwhelmed by his height. He had to be nearly seven feet tall. She craned her neck to look up at him. He was deeply tanned and wore his black hair a little longer than she was used to seeing.

  He led her outside and she got into his car and rested her head against the seat. A minute later they pulled away from the restaurant and she couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

  “You haven’t exactly been welcomed with the spirit of aloha,” he said.

  “Things were going really well,” she said, trying to keep the exhaustion and misery out of her voice. Why was it that death seemed to follow her everywhere she went?

  “Well, at least you’ll have an interesting story to tell your grandkids someday.”

  “I have enough of those to last a lifetime.”

  “That sounds intriguing. Care to share?”

  “No. All I want is to get back to my hotel, grab my bathing suit and hit the beach.”

  He grinned.

  “What?”

  “Spoken like a tourist.”

  “What, you can’t tell me locals don’t go to the beach?”

  He laughed. “Of course we do, but we’re usually already wearing our swimming suits under our clothes.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I wish I had more time here,” she said.

  “You need a local to show you around.”

  “I don’t know. I think I might have seen enough local color.”

  “Dumb luck. But let me make it up to you. Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, sure she had misheard him.

  “Dinner. I’m asking you out,” he said with a slow smile it was impossible not to be charmed by.

  “Oh, well, I don’t think-”

  “I get it. You’ve got a guy back home waiting for you, right?”

  She felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “Well, no, not exactly.” She sighed in frustration. It wasn’t like she and Jeremiah were dating. They were just friends. Why then did his face come instantly to mind when the detective asked her out?

  “So, it’s complicated, but there really isn’t a good reason why you can’t have dinner with me.”

  “Yes,” she blurted out. “How did you get that from what I said?”

  “Detective. Turns out it’s a skill that helps in all areas of life. So, if there’s no good reason, then we’ll go out to dinner tomorrow night, talk story, have a good time.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a question,” she accused.

  “It’s not. But here’s one: what time do you eat dinner?”

  “Six-thirty.”

  “Good answer.”

  When he pulled into the parking garage beneath her hotel it was almost too soon. She opened her door. “Well, thank you, Detective.”

  “Please, call me Kapono.”

  “Alright. It was a pleasure meeting you, Kapono.”

  “I will see you tomorrow night.”

  Something in the way he said it made her blush and she exited the car quickly. She walked to the escalator that would lead upstairs to the lobby of the hotel. She turned and gave a wave as he drove on.

  Her stomach rumbled noisily, reminding her that she still hadn’t had lunch. On a whim she turned away from the escalator and walked a few steps until she reached the sidewalk. The hotel was next door to the International Marketplace which was brimming with stores and stalls selling every Hawaiian trinket imaginable and then some.

  She walked through, doing her best to ignore the man who tried to get her to pick an oyster to get a pearl and the brightly colored sarongs that beckoned from racks with large discount signs. She saw a sign for the food court and she kept walking, deeper into the Marketplace until she finally found what she was looking for.

  The first food stand was Rainbow Sushi. It was the tiniest little structure imaginable, no bigger than the shed in her parents’ yard back home. The menu covered the entire front of the stand and she gawked at the variety of sushi available. More amazing still was how affordable it was.

  She hesitated for only a moment before ordering a California roll, tuna tamaki, and a lava roll. She watched in awe as the woman behind the counter prepared it all with swift hands. Less than five minutes later her sushi was ready and she took it to one of the metal tables to eat.

  The table next to her had a couple of locals, older women, who looked like they were finishing up their own lunches.

  “Shot in own kitchen. Terrible,” she heard one woman say.

  Cindy froze, chopsticks in hand. It had only been a few hours, surely they couldn’t be talking about Uncle. Word couldn’t have spread that quickly.

  “Yeah, but Uncle mixed up with bad types. He get what coming to him.”

  Then again, maybe news traveled faster here.

  The first speaker nodded. “Someone should have kicked him in the okole years ago.”
r />   The other one nodded and then they got up to toss their trash. Cindy struggled with her own curiosity and couldn’t believe that she wanted to stop the women and ask them about Uncle.

  What’s wrong with me, she wondered. This has nothing to do with me. I go home in a couple of days and I can forget I ever even heard about Uncle.

  But there was another part of her that knew she’d never be able to forget him lying there in a pool of blood with the bullet hole in his forehead. And she worried that she’d never be able to have peace about it until she knew that his killer had been caught. A reason to stay in touch with Kapono.

  She picked up a piece of lava roll and popped it in her mouth. The flavors exploded and she closed her eyes to better savor the taste. Twenty minutes later when she finished eating she had to admit it was the best sushi she’d ever had in her life. It was almost good enough to make her forget her morning. Almost, but not quite.

  Finished she took her time walking back through the Marketplace, trying to decide what gifts to take home. No matter how hard she tried to focus her thoughts elsewhere, though, they kept returning to the body she had seen that morning.

  Whoever had killed him had left the money in the cash register and the tip jar. That meant it wasn’t some kind of robbery. Unless they panicked and ran, she thought. She hadn’t seen anyone leaving the building when she walked up to it so it seemed unlikely that her arrival had scared the killer off.

  At last, disgusted with her ability to focus on anything else, she headed back to her hotel. Once in the lobby she made her way to the concierge desk and took a seat. Ten minutes later she was back in her room, satisfied that the luau she would be heading to shortly and the sightseeing cruise she’d booked for the next morning would help her take her mind off of everything that had happened.

  In the meantime the ocean was calling so she changed into her bathing suit, threw on a cover-up, grabbed her towel and headed for the beach.

  She had to walk along the street, passing a myriad of shops aimed at tourists to get to the beach. Waikiki beach was a comparatively small strip of sand separated from the main road by a low wall. Still it drew crushes of people to it and now she was one of them.

  As she passed by an electronics store something caught her eye and she stopped. There, on a television screen in the window, was a news report about the murder of Uncle. They flashed his face up on the screen and she stared at it transfixed. Next they supplanted his picture with a blank outline of a head and a question mark over it. The message was clear - the killer was unknown. She stared intently at that dark outline.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  ~

  Mark was hunched over the keyboard of his computer in his home office, scrolling through page after page of information. While he was still suspended from active duty on the police force he had been doing what he could to find out on his own exactly who his late partner was.

  Paul Dryer, that was the name he had known his partner under. Apparently, though, that was a lie. The body of the real Paul Dryer had been recovered from the mass grave at the Green Pastures campsite a couple of months before. The real Paul Dryer had been kidnapped as a child by a dangerous cult and apparently killed.

  No one knew yet who the man who had been his partner, who had been masquerading as Paul Dryer, really was. He had tried reaching out to Paul’s family, but couldn’t get them to return his calls. He wondered who at the department had been assigned the case and whether or not they were having any more luck.

  He heard the front door open and a few moments later Buster jumped into his lap.

  Mark rubbed the beagle behind the ears. The last several months had been terrible ones for him and his wife, Traci. The dog represented the one bright spot in all of that and the more time he was forced to spend at home the more attached he became.

  “We’re back from our walk,” his wife, Traci, said as she entered the room.

  “So I see.”

  She kissed his cheek. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s not,” he said with a sigh. He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve tried searching for other kids that went missing around the same time who were roughly the same age.”

  “You think NP knew he wasn’t the Dryer’s lost son?”

  NP stood for Not Paul. It was what they had taken to calling him for ease of communication. Somehow it seemed better than calling him John Doe even though that was essentially what he was.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. For all we know he thought he was the real Paul Dryer.”

  “I can’t even imagine what the family must be going through right now. I know if I were them I’d be in total denial. I mean, think about it. As far as they’re concerned they lost Paul and NP all on the same day.”

  It had to be unimaginable.

  Traci touched his shoulder. “Do you have an appointment with the psychologist today?”

  He shook his head. “I’m going to find someone else to talk to. That guy gives me the creeps.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  He could hear the concern in her voice. She was right to feel that way. If he was ever going to be allowed back on the force it was only going to happen after the mandatory hours of counseling they had assigned him. He knew that and knew he had to suck it up and get it done even though he didn’t want to talk to anyone about what had happened in that interrogation room two months earlier.

  Why did you put me in this position, NP?

  “Yes. I know it’s important. I just need to find someone else to talk to.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know,” she said.

  “You help just by being here,” he said.

  She kissed him again and then left the room.

  Traci was his angel. He didn’t deserve her, but he’d needed her more than he ever had before. She had held him when he cried for his dead partner. She had woken him from the nightmares that plagued him after he had tortured the suspect in his custody. She had listened while he babbled on about finding out the truth about both Paul Dryers.

  Somehow he would make it all up to her. He had to.

  He glanced up at a picture on the wall. It was him and Paul the day they had been partnered up together. “Who are you?” he whispered.

  ~

  When Jeremiah finally made it home Captain, his German Shepherd, was waiting eagerly at the door for him, his leash in his mouth.

  Jeremiah couldn’t help but laugh at the sight. “Okay, boy, I get the hint. Let me just change real quick.”

  Ten minutes later, wearing jeans and a polo shirt Jeremiah walked Captain down the sidewalk. He could feel the dog’s contentment and he had to admit that he’d grown to enjoy their walks nearly as much.

  The dog’s previous owner had taken him for walks in the park, but Captain was happy enough just strolling around the neighborhood. And since Jeremiah still wasn’t sure if friends or enemies of the dog’s former master might be looking for Captain, Jeremiah much preferred to walk someplace a little more secluded, less public.

  He was probably being paranoid. It had been six months since Captain’s old owner had ended up dead on Jeremiah’s front lawn. Fortunately the police had assumed that the man was another victim of the group killing the homeless and stealing dogs. When the guilty had been brought to justice the file on the man calling himself Peter Wallace had been closed. At least as far as the police were concerned.

  As far as Jeremiah was concerned the murder of Peter Wallace remained unsolved. Worse, it was clear to the rabbi that Wallace had been coming to his house in the middle of the night when he was shot less than a block away.

  Why was Wallace coming to see him? He knew they’d recognized each other in the park but he had desperately hoped the other would leave him alone. It was even more disturbing to think about the fact that his killer was on the loose and had been so close to Jeremiah’s home. Had he known where Wallace was heading? If so, when would he put in an appearance at Jerem
iah’s doorstep?

  He didn’t like any of it. Six months had passed but he still felt on edge all the time, afraid that his fragile web of lies was soon going to be put to the test and would unravel before his very eyes. Not only would that be a personal tragedy but it would also throw the synagogue into chaos, destroying it spiritually if not physically.

  Not to mention what knowing the truth would do to Cindy, he thought. He sighed. Lately it seemed like she was seldom far from his thoughts. There was no help for it and he’d given up trying to fight it.

  Captain followed him as he turned down a tree lined street. He couldn’t help but feel like the dog was part of the bigger mystery in a way he hadn’t yet guessed. He didn’t like waiting for something to happen. Every nerve, every instinct screamed at him to do something.

  But until a threat presented itself there was nothing to do.

  You could leave. Go somewhere else completely, start over.

  Appealing as the idea was, he had to admit he didn’t want to. In his gut he knew that had more to do with Cindy than it did with the members of the synagogue, even though he cared for them a great deal. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to leave others behind to wonder what had happened to him.

  A few blocks later they turned again and Jeremiah tried to focus on the trees and the birds around him. He breathed in deeply of the fresh air. He loved California. It would be a hard place to leave.

  Another turn brought them back onto his street. A few steps later he felt himself slowing and he looked down. A moment later he came to a stop at the exact spot that Wallace had been shot before staggering down the street to die on his lawn.

  He turned a slow circle, looking at the houses, the trees, the cars, everything. He had done so a dozen times before but he tried to imagine where the shooter would have been. The shot had been fired from only a few feet distant and the gun must have had a silencer since no one had heard a thing.

  Captain whined deep in his throat, anxious to get home. Although Jeremiah sometimes wondered if the dog knew what had happened to his owner here and hated the place. As he had a hundred times before Jeremiah tried to picture the killer in his mind.