“Promise,” said Jacob. “Any suggestion where I should begin?”
A silence.
Ludwig said, “I hesitate to even mention this.”
Jacob said nothing.
“One of the vics had a sister who was mentally ill. We never considered her for the original killings because, in the first place, she had no history of violence, and in the second place, we were only looking at men — we had semen. I guess it’s not impossible to fit a crazy woman to yours. Just cause she’s had some problems—”
“I know,” Jacob said. “I get it.”
“She’d have to succeed in tracking the guy down where we failed, and if she’s anything like I remember, that’s out of the question.”
“Fair enough,” Jacob said. “Let me talk to her, at least.”
“Go easy, would you?”
“I promise. What’s her name?”
“Denise Stein.”
“Janet Stein’s sister,” Jacob said.
Ludwig nodded.
Jacob said, “Did you ever look at anyone who spoke Hebrew?”
“Someone Jewish, you mean?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Who else speaks Hebrew?”
“A classically trained priest, a Bible scholar. You come across anyone like that?”
Ludwig was laughing. “Maybe I should be looking at you, Detective Lev. No. I don’t remember anyone like that. If there was, it’d be in there somewhere.”
Warily, Jacob regarded the mess.
Ludwig said, “Best of luck. Don’t forget to write.”
They repacked the file boxes and loaded them into the Honda: four in the trunk, two belted in the passenger seat, and seven stacked in the back.
A station wagon pulled into the driveway, and a slightly older version of the woman from the family photo got out, carrying a Gap bag and a supermarket rotisserie chicken.
“He’s taking it off my hands,” Ludwig said to her, thumbing at the boxes.
She beamed at Jacob. “My hero.”
Her name was Grete. She insisted Jacob stay for dinner. While they ate, she asked if Jacob intended to take her husband’s bugs, too. “Pretty please,” she said.
“She won’t let me bring them in the house,” Ludwig complained.
“What sane human being would?”
“I think it’s good to have a hobby,” Jacob said. “Better that than gambling.”
Grete stuck out her tongue at him.
“Listen to the man,” Ludwig said. “He’s a bright one.”
Jacob showed him the photos of the insect from the cemetery.
“Any idea what that is? I think I have an infestation.”
Ludwig put on his reading glasses. “I can’t tell the scale.”
Jacob demonstrated with his fingers. “About yea.”
Ludwig arched an eyebrow. “Really. That big...? Well, tell you what: e-mail them to me, and I’ll think on it. Don’t get your hopes up, though. It’s black, it’s shiny, it’s got six legs. Could be a lot of things. You know how many species of Coleoptera there are? About a hundred jillion. They once asked this biologist what his study of nature had taught him about the Creator. He said, ‘God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.’”
“Can we please, please talk about something else,” Grete said.
Jacob asked about their kids.
The younger son was at UC Riverside, the elder a sous chef in Seattle.
“You must eat well when he comes home.”
“I won’t let him in my kitchen,” Grete said. “He destroys it. He’ll use every single pan I own to make a salad. He’s used to other people cleaning up after him.”
“Like father, like son,” Ludwig said.
Chapter nineteen
Northbound traffic was bad, Sea World day-trippers returning to Orange County. Jacob burned most of a tank feathering the gas pedal. Behind and beside him, the boxes thumped and listed and threatened to topple, and every time he glanced in the rearview and confronted an expanse of tan cardboard, the magnitude of his new burden fell heavily on him.
Best of luck. Don’t forget to write.
Thanks, Philly.
Three exits shy of LAX, a Sigalert put an accident ahead. Jacob killed the radio and settled in to wait, using the quiet to turn over his discussion with Ludwig.
The D’s bias could stem from an honest belief that the family members were innocent. It could also be sensitivity to the suggestion that he had screwed up the first time around. Jacob sympathized. Anyone could benefit from a pair of fresh eyes. That didn’t make looking through them any fun. He wondered how well he’d take it if a young punk with half his years and twice his energy showed up to interrogate him about his most outstanding failure.
Minus Ludwig’s sales pitch, however, the Psychopath vs. Psychopath scenario held less appeal. Both versions — Jacob dubbed them Nerves and Remorse, respectively — had major shortcomings.
Remorse, because what defined a psychopath was lack thereof. It was far more common for a guy to get caught bragging than confessing.
Nerves suffered the same problem. Psychopaths didn’t get anxious. Jacob knew of no calm so profound and chilling. It enabled them to engage in behaviors that would cause an ordinary person to pass out.
Also: a nervous man didn’t waste time on symbolism.
Unless Ludwig was right, and the point was to juke the cops.
Psychopath trying to look like an avenger. Ha-ha: I control everything.
Maybe. But Jacob’s instincts rebelled. He’d seen the severed head, seen the message. As gestures, they were at once too subtle and too theatrical not to be genuine.
These were telegraphs, direct from the heart.
A twisted heart, but one that felt, deeply.
A heart that longed to communicate.
Then his mind pretzled: double fake-out? Avenger trying to look like a psychopath trying to look like an avenger?
Vice versa?
How far up the theoretical beanstalk did he want to climb?
In a way, the process he was engaged in — inflating ideas to their extremes, then kicking them for soundness — drew on skills cultivated in Hebrew day school and yeshiva. Argument proceeded by putting forth a law, then presenting challenges and contradictions to it. Sometimes those challenges were resolved. Sometimes not. Sometimes the reasoning behind a law was roundly demolished but the law itself retained in practice.
It was an idiosyncratic method, a mash-up of pure logic and faith-based exegesis, insisting on the truth of many truths. You argued not to find an answer, but to argue well.
For that very reason, the method had its limitations when applied to the real world. He didn’t think his superiors would be content with a series of penetrating questions.
Or would they?
Questions are good.
The basic refutation to the Psycho vs. Psycho theory was the woman on the 911 call. Ludwig had to agree that she couldn’t be one of the original killers, not unless there was a third person never accounted for, and such an explanation flew in the face of parsimony. Two killers was already pushing it. Two plus a female was beyond farfetched.
Jacob laughed to himself with an unexpected memory: an old friend who kept a running list of English words that sounded like Yiddish.
Farfetched.
Far-flung.
Melts.
Inspiring Jacob to create his own list, English that sounded like Talmudic Aramaic.
Derisive.
Houdini.
Time to add a new one.
Beheaded.
The Prius in front of him stopped short, and he jammed on the brake, his brain popping and fizzing. He couldn’t remember feeling this keyed up in years. He’d never get to sleep tonight without a drink.