'Dead sure. The notification's for today, so you gotta go, you hear me?' he demanded.
'Yes, sir,' she said.
She was in her car on her way up to the Bronx to warn Hollis off Wendy before meeting Mike and Poppy Bellaqua at headquarters to view the wedding video, which had been viewed so far only at the Five-oh. She'd left Queens and just entered the Bronx going west on the Major Deegan Expressway toward Riverdale. Now she had to get off, turn around, and head back around the heel of the Bronx to the Bruckner Expressway that followed a northeasterly course in the direction of White Plains and New England.
Dole was random drug testing. This was the one Department order that put all other orders, including major homicides, on the back burner. There was no getting around it, no missed appointments, no changing days, and nobody was exempt, from the police commissioner on down. Names were drawn every day, and the day you were picked you had to
go up to Health Services and pee into two vials. The second vial was kept in case there was a challenge on the first one. If the drug test was positive, you were fired. Period.
It was absolutely firm that you had to go that day so there was no chance for the passage of time to get anything funny out of your system. And there was no chance of cheating because someone came into the room with you and watched you provide your sample. In April's case, this was a particular agony because she had a major peeing-in-public phobia. Major. Everybody else breezed right through the nothing ordeal, but to April it was not a nothing ordeal. She didn't like even a female person in there with her, didn't like it at all.
'Listen, you could help me out,' she said slowly.
'Oh, yeah?' Iriarte's voice brightened.
'You could save us some time and have Charlie do some background work for me.'
'You got a suspect?'
'Could be.'
'You got a name on that suspect?'
'Yeah. Wendy Lotte. That's Lincoln, Oliver, double Tom, Eleanor. Got it?'
'Yeah, yeah. Lot with two Ts and an E. Would that be Gwendolyn?'
'No, just the W.'
'Would there be anything else?'
'Tang Ling.'
'The dress designer?'
'Yeah. The bride was wearing a Tang gown. Just indulge me a little.'
'Okay, can do.'
The Schoenfelds had five girls and four boys. April
finished her Dole in record dme and spent an hour in the Schoenfelds' finished basement, talking in turn with all five girls and two of the boys while upstairs more sitdng shivah was going on, and outside a dozen reporters were taking photos of mourners and trying to get them to speak.
April had totally expected to waste her time. Unlike in the movies, investigative interviews were never wrapped up in five minutes. First of all, it took hours of traveling time, across a bridge, two bridges, traffic all the way. When she got wherever she was going, sometimes the person she wanted was available, sometimes not. If she was really lucky, the person was there and willing to talk. But a lot of people thought they didn't know anything worthwhile and didn't want to talk. April had learned a long time ago that she couldn't ever go anywhere cold. She had to do some homework first, had to have some idea of what kind of information she wanted to elicit. And she had to know something about the person she wanted to question so a connection could be made.
Usually it took hours and she went away with a little something, a tiny tidbit that might be important down the line and might not. What April knew about Tovah was that she was spacey, not all there. She wanted to know what that meant.
At the same time Mike traveled to the Ribikoffs' three-story brick house in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He hadn't slept well without April. But after their dim sum dinner last night, he hadn't felt like spending the night with her and took her right home. A first. Now he was wide-awake and focused on his interview with the groom's family.
He'd done some research on the family, and the background check had uncovered an uneventful life. The Ribikoffs were registered Republicans, had traveled to Israel in 1998 and 2000. They paid taxes every year and had never been audited. Their credit cards were far from maxed out. They owned their house and '94 Ford Explorer. No vehicular violations. They had four children of which Schmuel was the second. Their oldest child was a girl, married last year, now living upstate. The wedding had cost in the neighborhood of twenty thousand dollars, about ten percent of what the Schoenfelds had put out for Tovah's. The Ribikoffs' two younger boys were still in high school. Neither of them had ever been in trouble, nor had Schmuel, who was highly regarded by his teachers and classmates. The family business was real estate—not big-time like the Schoenfelds—but the Ribikoffs were not doing badly, either. They were connected to some recent Russian emigres, who hadn't been invited to the wedding. Was that good enough motive to kill the bride? Mike didn't think so.
Unlike the Schoenfeld house, this one was comfortable but had little display of major wealth. Mr. Ribikoff himself answered the door. Thin, balding, sad-looking, and small, he didn't look like the kind of man who would seize a valuable diamond ring off a dying girl.
'I don't know how I can help you. I told the detective yesterday I don't know why anyone would do something like this,' he said, reluctantly offering Mike a seat in his living room.
'How well did your son know Tovah?' Mike got to the point right away.
Ribikoff lifted a hand. 'The boy saw her picture.
She was a pretty girl.' The almost-father-in-law's face became animated for a moment as he thought of how pretty his son's wife would have been. 'A nice, quiet girl, not a chatterbox. He liked her; what else did he need to know?'
'How did they meet?'
'My wife's friend, Ruth Lasker, she had the photo. My wife, she liked the girl's face, too. I liked her. Rebecca told Ruth we were interested.' He dipped his chin. 'Then he came to take a look at Schmuel praying.'
Mike frowned. 'Who?'
'Schoenfeld. He came to the Yeshiva, looked at the boy, liked what he saw.' Mr. Ribikoff had moment of pride for his son, who'd attracted the interest of a rich and important family.
'Then what happened?'
'Naturally my wife wanted to go to the house, have a cup of coffee, eat a piece of cake, and see the girl before they started to date. But Suri Schoenfeld refused. That's the kind of person she is.'
'Why?'
'She didn't want us telling Schmuel what to do. She insisted it was up to the children to decide if they liked each other.' He rolled his eyes. 'My wife is not like Suri Schoenfeld with the airs, but she does have a mind of her own. Why are you asking this? Who do you suspect?'
'We're looking for anything unusual.'
'Oh, there was plenty unusual.' Ribikoff made a face. 'We live in a tight community here. You can get everything you need here. You never have to leave. Everybody understands the rules. My wife complains that the whole world knows your business,
knows your kids' business. They see you coming, they see you going, and the talk keeps up all day long. That's why it's a tradition to find new blood for the children, people outside your own four corners. But new blood that's the same blood. You know what I'm talking?'
Mike nodded. He knew exactly what Ribikoff was talking.
'Tovah was a religious girl and the family would have been good for Schmuel, but they polluted us.'
'Polluted?'
'Yes, we do things simply, in a family way. We stick with the people we know. We don't bring in goyim—
from Africa to arrange the flowers. No offense, but you see what I'm saying? Look at the shame they've brought us,' he said sadly.
Mike changed the subject. 'Tell me about Tovah's ring,' he said.
'It was a very costly ring. That's all I'm going to say.' His eyes strayed toward the ceiling.
