The Silent Bride

minute.'

But Ching was still trying to digest the news. A bride shot! Suddenly she felt dizzy and wondered what April knew about it. Poor Tang. 'Did you know her?' Ching asked.

'Of course I knew her. We dressed her, made her gown. Special order. A big one,' Tang said impatiently. 'It's just terrible! And they haven't paid the bill yet.'

'What?' Ching was shocked by the concern about money, but the tragedy gave her an idea. It occurred to her that she had an important relation in the police department. Maybe she could help Tang somehow by offering April to assist her. Then maybe Tang would give her a free dress for her trouble.

'My best friend, my maid of honor, in fact, is a very important detective in the police department,' Ching said slowly. Tang read her mind before she was even finished getting the sentence out.

'You aren't going to ask for a free dress for

her,

are you?' she said quickly. 'I can't afford any more freebies.'

Ching blushed hotly. 'No, no. Of course not. You've already been so generous. 1 just thought maybe she can do something to help.'

'Well, thanks anyway, Ching. But no cops. I just want to stay as far from this as possible. The last thing 1 need is this kind of attention.'

'Miss Ling, you're going to be late.' The girl was back. 'I have your purse.'

'No, no, take it back upstairs. I have some calls to make.' Tang hurried out the door. 'See you, Ching.'

Suddenly Ching felt queasy. After the news of a murdered bride in a Tang gown and Tang's attitude, Ching's joy of being an insider with a free wedding dress dissipated fast. She felt like the poor college girl of the old days, someone getting leftovers. And the murder troubled her more than she wanted to admit. She felt funny putting on the gown, even though Kim had altered it to fit her perfectly.

She evaluated herself in front of the mirror. The train with the coffee stain was gone. The hem dipped just enough in back now to puddle a few inches on the floor. Kim had added more bobbing pearls to the bodice, adding to its luster. But Ching was a plain, no-nonsense kind of girl, not in any way the beauty that her friend April was, and her expression shov/ed that she wasn't happy in her gift.

'What's the matter, girl, you don't want to get married?' Kim said, smoothing his hand along her waist speculatively. He took a tuck, careful not to stick her with the pin.

'No, no. I love the dress. Kim, you did an amazing job. Really.'

'It was my design,' he said modestly.

But he didn't think it was perfect. A few minutes later Ching left without the dress. Kim had insisted on another fitting.

Thirteen

A

t four-forty-five that afternoon April tapped at the closed door of Rabbi Levi's study in Temple Shalom. 'It's Lieutenant Sanchez and Sergeant Woo,' she said.

'Yes, they told me you were here. Come in,' the rabbi said in a tired voice.

Mike opened the door, took a quick look around, then let her go in first. Coming from the brightness of the well-lit hall to the darkness of the paneled room, April's eyes didn't register a person in there at first. In his black suit Rabbi Levi was a small figure sitting motionless in a dark leather chair behind a large desk. On this sunny Monday afternoon his study was in dusk. Lined on three sides with leather-bound and dark-covered books, the room looked like an ancient library from another world. This atmosphere was enhanced by the folded newspaper in Hebrew that was all the paper visible on his desk. The sorrowful, gray-haired man seemed much reduced from yesterday. His expression clearly said it was happening again: His people were being embroiled in a brand-new holocaust in the year 2002, right there in Riverdale, New York.

Without looking at the two detectives, he gestured for them to enter the office. 'We had almost a thousand people at the funeral. They came from all over. A sizable demonstration of respect.'

'Yes, and thank God there was no trouble,' April murmured.

There had been no anti-Israel demonstrations and none of the anti-Semitic sentiment from the African- American and Middle Eastern factions in the city that the rabbi had predicted. April's instincts appeared to be on target. This killing was a personal thing. And the news media thought so, too. The media bulldozers were already moving the earth around the wealthy Schoenfeld family, searching for their underpinnings. The news vans were out in droves. Dozens of reporters from agencies all over the world had been at the funeral, plus the dozens of still cameras, clicking away. Tovah's murder was topping the worldwide charts as America's freak-of-the-week crime horror. The mayor was going nuts, the police commissioner, too.

A lot of people were asking again: What kind of city was this where somebody could shoot down an eighteen-year-old bride in front of hundreds of people? Several vans were outside the temple even now. Mike and April had been videoed going in. The press couldn't be stopped.

The rabbi bristled at April's remark that the funeral had gone without a hitch. 'There's lots of trouble, maybe not the kind you mean. The girl, bless her soul, is in the ground now. No one else can hurt her. But that can't be said of rest of us.' His anger escalated as he spoke. He was a man used to lecturing. 'Do you know who did this terrible thing to us?'

To Tovah, April wanted to correct him. The victim was a person with a name. Others could have been killed very easily, but no one else had been killed. It had been a careful hit. The murder was not a message for the universal them. April wished she could lecture right back and tell this mourning rabbi that Tovah was the one they had to think of now. They had to focus on what had made her a target in her happiest moment on her happiest day—not the day before, not the day after. She refrained from saying this. She wanted his help, not his ire.

'Your people left a mess. It's a disgrace,' the rabbi went on, changing the subject so quickly April wasn't sure for a second what he meant.

'In the synagogue?' she asked, glancing at Mike, who'd asked her to conduct the interview.

'Everywhere. Those yellow tapes. Bloody floors.'

Ah.

Sometimes people went on the offensive when they were hurt. They threatened to hire lawyers, to sue anyone and everyone they could think of. The rabbi was a complainer. April nodded sympathetically. She knew that the Crime Scene Unit had taken all the refuse from their own materials with them, but he didn't mean that. He'd wanted the place cleaned up last night after they'd finished. Literally the floors and pews washed so they could have their services in the sanctuary today.

April had already checked out the situation. There were several other synagogues in the area where people could pray today and tomorrow. That was as far as she could go. In the movies, you might see bad guys cleaning up their murder scenes, but the police were the good guys. They provided other services.

'I know you talked with Inspector Bellaqua about anti-Semitism in the community,' she murmured.

The rabbi leaned forward and looked hard at Mike for the first time. 'Good, hardworking people live here. I told the inspector we had a small incident last year—a swastika in shaving cream on one of the windows. Not even spray paint. A prank. Since then, a broken window. A few things...' He seemed of two minds about pursuing it. If he let that angle go, where would the police look next?

'That's what Sergeant Hollis told us,' April said.

'He's a good policeman. We had a car theft once. He was helpful.' Rabbi Levi looked away. He'd played the hate crime card. Experienced bias detectives were all over the place. They were turning the area upside down. They would continue with every lead they could dig up. But not a lot was there. No follow-up to the crime had occurred so far. The killer had gone to ground. That put the motive back in the family arena. Rabbi Levi clearly wasn't comfortable with it.

April glanced at Mike again. He'd told her to lead, but the rabbi didn't want to acknowledge a female. Or maybe it was the Chinese tiling. Maybe both. Some people didn't think a Chinese female could investigate a crime. Mike wasn't going to jump in and help. April made a note to call Dr. Jason Frank, a psychoanalyst and the only Jew she knew well enough to ask about how the Orthodox thought.

She changed the subject. 'Tell us about your staff here. Any problems with them?'

Rabbi Levi gummed the insides of his cheeks as he recited the information. 'We have a large staff, teachers in