Restoreth My Soul (Psalm 23 Mysteries)

  “Oh.”

  Mark had thought that was the case but was pleased to have it confirmed for him without raising Trevor’s suspicions.

  “Was your father working on any restoration projects for clients when he was killed?”

  “No, there was nothing in his studio,” Trevor said, blinking rapidly.

  He’s lying, Mark realized.

  “I respect his creed that art should be for all the people. I get that’s where the bulk of his business came from, but did he have any really high-end clients? Either for private sales or restoration projects?”

  “Not since my father took over the store. I believe my grandfather had a more exclusive clientele and dealt in pieces that were a bit more pricey, but my father changed the business model once it was his sole responsibility.”

  Just by listening to the emphasis he placed on his words Mark had the distinct impression that Trevor preferred his grandfather’s approach. Maybe in the Haverston family snobbery skipped every other generation.

  “And now you’re shutting it down.”

  “I don’t care to own a business like this,” Trevor said. “Too much work, not enough reward.”

  “Your sisters feel the same way?”

  “Of course. Now, what does all this have to do with the new lead you’re following?”

  “Probably nothing,” Mark said.

  “Well, if there’s nothing else, I really am very busy getting ready for the sale,” Trevor said.

  “Of course. If I can just get the name of that art restorer from you.”

  Trevor moved around the desk, opened one of the drawers, and a minute later handed him a card with the information. “Good luck with your wife’s painting, Detective.”

  “Thanks. You know, cleaning it is probably going to cost more than the thing’s even worth. It’s a picture of a bunch of dogs playing poker.”

  He swore he saw the nerve under Trevor’s eye twitch.

  “I’m sure if it has sentimental value to your wife it will be well worth the cost.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Mark left, nodding to the lady from the auction house as he passed by her on his way out of the store. She had her cell phone out, looking at it, and she acknowledged his head nod with a tight-lipped smile.

  Mark went over the conversation with Trevor in his head. There was something truly fishy, but he needed to put a few more pieces of the puzzle together before he could haul Trevor down to the precinct and accuse him of anything.

  He had purposely decided not to mention Heinrich so as to avoid tipping his hand too much. He wondered, though, what would have happened if he had.

  Jeremiah was never going to finish the translation work before Rosh Hashanah. He could probably finish reading it to himself by then, but not speaking it into the recorder. He was losing his voice and he couldn’t afford to have it gone completely. Not at this time of the year.

  He called Mark again.

  “Find something?” the detective asked.

  “No, you?” Jeremiah whispered.

  “Maybe. You sound worse.”

  “Can you get a video recorder?”

  “I’m sure I can scrounge one up for you. I can have it over there in about an hour or so, maybe less.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jeremiah hung up, not wanting to waste more words than he had to. He had to sit and rest his voice for a few more minutes before he could resume. He grabbed a glass of water and had a seat in the writing room, in the corner farthest from where the body had been. As he sipped the water he glanced around the room and let his mind wonder.

  Rosh Hashanah was the Jewish New Year and was a two-day event. It was the beginning of the ten-day period referred to as Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, which some also called the Days of Repentance. The ten days ended with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The entire time was one of reflection, a time to set goals for the new year and to seek the forgiveness of G-d and others.

  He had planned to spend the last few days in quiet contemplation of his own life and preparation for the liturgy he’d be giving. Much of Rosh Hashanah was actually spent in the synagogue.

  This year, as always, he had a lot of repenting to do. What he had yet to figure out was what he planned on doing differently in the coming year. He could always pledge not to kill anyone, but with Cindy’s penchant for finding trouble that might be an unrealistic pledge. He didn’t want to make a vow to G-d knowing there was a real likelihood that he’d have to break it.

  Maybe one of the things he needed to rethink was his relationship with Cindy. He had managed to live a low key life for the last few years until she entered into it. She had definitely shaken things up and changed the balance and order of his life. Because of her he’d done things that he’d never thought he’d have to do again. Then he had nearly kissed her.

  Yes, his relationship with her, whatever it actually was, should definitely be the top thing on his list to discuss with G-d. He had brought Cindy into Jeremiah’s life and the rabbi did not believe in coincidences. That meant that in all the craziness, all the sheer insanity of the past year-and-a-half there had been a plan, a higher purpose. He just wished he understood what that was.

  He thought again of the moment when he’d almost kissed Cindy. It had been so spontaneous, so honest, and it had seemed the most natural thing until he realized what it was he was about to do. It would have changed everything between them and that was something he couldn’t allow to happen.

  He had always known that caring for a woman, getting close to her in a romantic way would be a complicated thing because he’d have to share with her his past. The burden of it would drive most away.

  Lately though he’d had moments where he almost wished he could tell Cindy the truth. Then he would imagine the way she would look at him afterward, the horror in her eyes, the fear in every line of her body, and he knew he couldn’t do that. Not to either of them.

  He couldn’t have a deeper relationship without telling her and there would be no hope of having a deeper relationship once she knew. He was stuck exactly where he was. Somehow that must be in G-d’s plan, too. He just hoped that one day soon he knew what that plan was. Even a tiny glimmer of it would make life so much better.

  He finished his water and got back to work. He did a couple of quick tests with the recorder to see just how softly he could whisper before it became an issue. Armed with that knowledge he continued his work.

  His stomach rumbled and he hoped that Cindy showed up soon with food. He also hoped Mark showed up soon with the video recorder. In the back of his mind playing over and over he was also wondering just how long he was going to be able to hold out before he pulled up all the carpets in the house looking for more treasure.

  It was beyond frustrating that Heinrich still hadn’t said what it was that he had found and his optimism that sooner or later the man would write about it was dwindling. His curiosity about the Hebrew writing, though, was only growing. Someone like the ex-Nazi was the last person he’d expect to have made the effort to learn Hebrew. Wherever he had learned it, he had studied hard and done well. He had an impressive vocabulary for someone who hadn’t been raised with it. Maybe he would at least find out what had driven the man to learn it.

  After the ice cream headaches subsided, Joseph volunteered to take both Cindy and Geanie out to dinner. Cindy declined so that she could take pizza to Jeremiah like she’d promised, but wished them a happy evening. Geanie was at least looking a little bit better than she had been earlier and with Joseph she was in good hands.

  She grabbed some packets of tea, a mug, kettle, lemon and honey. She had nearly forgotten that Jeremiah had asked her to bring those things. She just hoped that his throat was doing okay.

  She wished she could spend some time online looking up information about the Amber Room, but she remembered that Jeremiah had wanted her to come over early if she could. Her research would just have to wait. But now that some of the shock of the night before and Gean
ie’s pronouncement was wearing off she found herself growing increasingly curious. Was it really possible that the old man had stolen cultural treasures in his home?

  From what Jeremiah had been reading Heinrich had clearly fought in the war. She’d heard somewhere that a lot of the art, jewelry, and even silverware that the Nazis had stolen had never been found. Was it possible some of it had made it to America?

  It made a certain sort of sense after all. Everyone was busy tracking stuff down in Germany and neighboring countries. Who would even think to look for most of those things in America?

  Her curiosity was reasserting itself and she started to get excited about the thought of continuing to search the house for anything else Heinrich could have hidden in it. Of course, at this point, the police had probably already ripped up the rest of the carpet in the house looking for more treasures and trapdoors.

  She thought about the painting of the dogs. Why go to all the trouble to hide it? Hiding the Amber Room made perfect sense, but not the painting. You could get a good copy of that for twenty bucks or less at a print shop. If it had been the bloodstains that were the issue why hadn’t he just gotten rid of the paper? He could have thrown it away, burned it, even dissolved it. Unless he didn’t have time to do any of those things. Still, she had the impression that the painting had been in its hiding place for a little while, although maybe she was wrong about that.

  She swung by and grabbed a large pizza and some more sodas from Round Table and headed on to the house. She was eager to hear what else Jeremiah might have found out while translating.

  She pulled up outside, got out of her car and froze. There, halfway down the block, was a black car with dark windows that looked just like the one she had seen in the church parking lot.

  Her heart began to beat faster as she continued to stare. For one insane moment she wondered what would happen if she walked up and knocked on the window. She even took a step forward before she stopped herself.

  Don’t be an idiot, she told herself. It was probably a coincidence and if it wasn’t then knocking on the window was the worst thing she could possibly do. The way it was parked behind another car she couldn’t read the license plate number and she dare not risk getting close enough to see it.

  She got her pizza and drinks out of the car, locked it and headed for the front door still keeping one eye on the black car. She made it inside and Jeremiah greeted her at the door, this time calmly and with a smile which relieved her to no end.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, his smile quickly turning to a frown as he studied her face.

  “I guess. There’s a black car out there with tinted windows. It looks a lot like one I saw in the church parking lot that seemed out of place to me.”

  He moved past her and outside. She debated about following him, but decided to carry the food into the kitchen. After all, it was probably nothing. As soon as she set things down she headed to the master bedroom, wanting to see what it looked like with the floor torn out.

  The sound of a gunshot brought her up short. She turned and took two quick steps toward the front door before it flew open. Jeremiah was standing there, his hand pressed over his upper arm. Blood was dripping between his fingers.

  “Call the police!” he gasped.

  9

  Cindy’s scream reverberated through the house as Jeremiah sunk slowly to a seat on the stairs. The sound pained him far more than his arm. He listened as she frantically called Mark and then was unable to stop her from calling 911. As soon as she had hung up with them he got her attention.

  “Can you get me a clean towel from the bathroom?”

  She ran to get it and was back moments later. Her pupils were dilated and she was breathing in short, shallow gasps. He was afraid that she was going to pass out before he did. He had been going to enlist her help to get the bleeding stopped but immediately thought better of it.

  He took the towel from her and pressed it to his arm, applying as much pressure as he could in an effort to stop the bleeding.

  “I need you to try to slow your breathing down,” he said, making his voice as low and soothing as he could. “I’m going to be okay, the wound isn’t bad, I just need to get the bleeding to stop and everything will be fine.”

  She still had the deer in the headlights look, but at least she was listening to him. He also noticed she was attempting to focus on her breathing.

  “Good, that’s it,” he said.

  The shock was wearing off and the pain was crashing in. No matter how many times he was shot he would never get used to it. Sweat was beginning to form on his brow and he knew he had to look incredibly pale, but he struggled not to let her see how much pain he was in. It would do neither of them any good.

  His head was swimming a little bit which was not good.

  “You’re doing good,” he reinforced.

  “What happened?” she asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

  “You were right about the car. There was definitely something suspicious about it. When I got close someone shot me out the passenger window and then the driver took off.”

  He had been an idiot. He had assumed given everything that she was going through that Cindy was just being paranoid so he had taken no precautions when approaching the car. He hadn’t even gotten very close when the occupants reacted.

  If he hadn’t seen the barrel of the good a split second before it was fired he’d be dead. She didn’t need to know that, though.

  And no matter what condition she was in he would never again take anything she said lightly. She had incredible instincts about these things and he had just learned the hard way that it was to his detriment to ignore them.

  “I’m so sorry!”

  “It’s not your fault. You weren’t the one who shot me. In fact, you warned me that there was something strange about that car. At least now we know that we’re being watched, that we need to take precautions. I think part of our problem has been that since neither of us discovered a body we’ve felt like we were only tangential to this investigation, but I think we just got pulled right into the middle of it.”

  “I knew something terrible was going to happen,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “Cindy, we can’t focus on that right now,” he said. “We just have to stay calm until Mark and the paramedics arrive.”

  Which couldn’t happen too soon as far as he was concerned. The pain was growing and although the bleeding was slowing it wasn’t fast enough. There were a few tricks he knew to rectify the latter problem, but he didn’t have the tools for most and he was more than a little worried about freaking Cindy out. Seeing him cauterize his own wound was probably more than she could handle at the moment. And the questions she was likely to ask afterward were far more than he could handle ever.

  “Tell you what, why don’t you humor me and rip up a piece of that carpet in the dining room?” he asked.

  She blinked at him. “You want me to rip up the carpet?”

  He nodded. “How else are we going to find out if there’s treasure under it? Besides, we’ve got to do something while we wait.”

  She crouched down and began grabbing at the carpet and tugging on it. “It’s tacked down tight,” she said.

  “Probably a sign that there’s nothing to find, but why take the chance?” he asked. “There’s a Swiss army knife in my right pocket if you want to get it.”

  She licked her lips nervously as she stood and walked over to him. Her eyes strayed to his bloody arm.

  “Hey, look at me, look me in the eyes,” he ordered, putting authority in his voice and raising it slightly even though it hurt to do so because of how hoarse he’d become.

  She did as told and he forced himself to smile like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “See, everything’s good. Now just reach into my pocket and grab the knife.”

  She looked down and he twisted as far as he could onto his left hip to make it easier for her to reach. She hesitated for the longest mome
nt and then she finally reached into his pocket. He noticed that she started blushing as she did so and it took all his willpower not to comment on it.

  She pulled the knife free and stepped back quickly, her cheeks still stained with red.

  “You ever use one of those things?” he asked.

  She nodded and a moment later had flipped open one of the blades. Then she got down on the ground and attacked the carpet with such ferocity that it was breathtaking. She stabbed and cut and ripped as if her life depended on it.

  Moments later she pulled up a hunk of the carpet. Her shoulders dropped slightly. “There’s nothing underneath it,” she said, disappointment thick in her voice.

  “Okay, maybe not under that one, but there’s lots more rooms,” he said. “Save the writing room for last since they might still be needing to preserve the crime scene.”

  She nodded and turned toward the stairs. Jeremiah moved his feet slightly so that she could get at the carpet on the first stair. When she pulled it up he saw only wood, no amber reflecting the light as he had secretly hoped to see.

  “Why don’t you check the rooms upstairs?” he suggested.

  He was getting woozier, but keeping her calm and occupied was top priority.

  She hesitated. “I don’t want to leave you alone,” she said after a minute.

  “You won’t. You’ll be right up there and I promise I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wait right here.”

  He smiled again, but from the way she recoiled slightly he realized he wasn’t doing a good job of looking calm anymore. She hesitated, but finally walked up the steps, scooting around him, her legs brushing against his good shoulder as she made her way upstairs.

  Moments later he heard her attacking the carpet on the landing. There was a ripping sound and then she called down, “Nothing so far.”

  “Keep looking!”

  Finally in the distance he could hear sirens. He heaved a sigh of relief. Time seemed to dilate and stand still after that so it seemed like he had been hearing the sirens for at least an hour. When Cindy came back downstairs it seemed like she was taking a step a minute and each footfall felt like it would shake apart the entire staircase.