Death tourism — a reliable boom industry.
The resting place of the Maharal had caused a snarl in the foot traffic. Jacob paddled to the middle of a group of Hasidic men and rose up on his toes for a better look. The tomb was carved from pink sandstone, its peaked shape faintly evocative of the Alt-Neu Shul.
Fitting; centuries later, place and man defined each other.
Pebbles and coins lined a ridge jutting below a carved lion, the Loew family crest. Loew shared a root with Leo. It was one of those things his father had told him again and again, which Jacob had absorbed without realizing. The guidebook added that the figure was also a reference to the coat of arms of Bohemia, which featured a two-tailed lion. Another Fun Sam Fact: the Maharal had been an acquaintance of the Emperor Rudolf II, who had invited the rabbi to court to discuss Kabbalah and mysticism.
Several misguided souls had stuck notes in the tombstone’s crevices: the gravely ill petitioning for health, the barren for children, and no doubt lots of folks seeking material wealth.
Jacob could hear his father’s admonishing voice.
You don’t pray to a man — any man.
Elbowing his way closer, he saw that the tomb was in fact double-width. On the left, the Maharal himself, whose epitaph declared him the great genius of Israel; on the right, his wife, lying at his side for eternity.
The righteous woman who contented.
Perel, the daughter of Reb Shmuel.
A woman of valor, the crown of her husband.
Strange form of praise. Content with what? Her lot in life? Her husband? A rabbinic dictum had it that the rich man is one who is happy with his portion, so perhaps Perel had been famously pleased.
For all the stories he’d heard about the Maharal, none mentioned anything about a wife. But of course she’d existed. Jewish scholars were encouraged to settle down early. That Perel shared a name with his mother — middle name; but still — made him smile and shake his head. Maybe that was what had attracted Sam to Bina in the first place. They were both women of valor. Standing before the tomb, it seemed less absurd to Jacob that his father continued to sing the Shabbat song. To love a dead woman was Sam’s right as much as it was his failure. The same could be said of Jacob’s unwillingness to forgive.
He crouched to pluck a pebble from the ground.
A beetle darted across his hand.
A startled shout burst from his throat, and he sprang back, crashing into one of the Hasidim and sending his camera flying. The Hasid began to scream at him in French, and Jacob apologized and snatched up his own camera from the dirt.
The beetle had meantime scampered back along the path; he spotted it in a bed of dry leaves, standing up on its hind legs, waving its black arms smugly.
Seized with rage, Jacob lunged for it, coming up with a handful of moist earth. He tried again, and again it danced back, and he began hobble-hopping after it, swimming upstream, worming his way through stocking legs and flip-flops and sensible shoes, raising screeches of disapproval.
The beetle flitted from stone to stone, its wings unfurling for one luminous instant and then vanishing into its black casing while it waited for him to catch up, its legs bent, poised to take flight.
He coiled to lunge again and hands grabbed hold of him, eight arms and four heads like some crazy Hasidic Vishnu, dragging him toward the exit, yelling curses in his ear in Yiddish and French. Jacob didn’t understand a word of it except for beheimah — animal.
Shoved through the cemetery gates, he found himself in the narrow road facing the Alt-Neu, where he had only just left, as though he was pinned to some monstrous creaking wheel.
He stumbled away, making turns at random, coming to a side street. In the privacy of a doorway he collapsed, trembling like a wet dog.
Bugs were in cemeteries. Bugs were everywhere.
The Creator had an inordinate fondness for beetles.
The worst part was realizing that he’d failed: he’d forgotten to place the stone.
His pocket buzzed and he jumped.
Incoming texts filled the screen: the severed head, shot at multiple angles. A phone number for the shul’s director of security, Peter Wichs.
The defaced, long-gone cobblestone.
Peter Wichs answered in Czech, but upon hearing Jacob’s voice he switched to a fluid, idiomatic English. They arranged to meet at the Alt-Neu at five-thirty, allowing an hour before services.
Jacob bought himself a Coke, drained it in four desperate gulps, and set out for the Pension Karlova.
Havel the hotel manager regarded the photos of the severed head with the resignation of a man who’s not only seen worse but has also scrubbed it out of carpeting. While he couldn’t definitively identify the head as belonging to the Brit who’d skipped out on his bill, he did agree to retrieve the guest registry, playing out his tale of woe with tragic brio.
“Who can do this? I am a good man, honest man, I pay taxes, I don’t cheat.”
The registration form listed a UK passport number, issued to one Reginald Heap; a London address; a credit card number.
“Decline,” Havel said. “I call police.”
Heap’s birthdate was given as 19 April 1966.
Right in the zone for the Creeper killings.
Hoping for hair or skin cells, Jacob asked Havel what he’d done with Heap’s belongings.
“Throw away.”
Crap. “Can I get a copy of his information?”
Havel pointed to Jacob’s phone. “Picture.”
“You want a picture.”
Havel nodded.
“With me?”
Havel frowned at him. “Head.”
“A picture — of the head?”
Havel nodded.
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
Havel slammed the registry shut.
“Come on,” Jacob said. He opened his wallet. “Let’s work this out another way.”
“Picture,” Havel insisted.
“You’re serious.”
Havel set his jaw and looked past Jacob.
“Fine, what’s your e-mail address?”
Once Havel had received the photo, he disappeared into a back room, gone for a solid fifteen minutes. Jacob dinged the bell, to no avail.
At last Havel returned. He handed Jacob a copy of the registration form and proudly displayed a black-and-white printout of the head, upon which he’d scrawled, in red marker, ten or so words in Czech.
Waving the gruesome photo, he taped it to the wall beside the key rack.
“Please don’t do that,” Jacob said.
Havel proudly translated the caption: “This is happen for people who don’t pay.”
With a tall glass of beer in front of him, Jacob commandeered a booth at an Internet café.
A Miami detective named Maria Band had e-mailed him, inviting him to call her cell.
He dialed her.
“This is Band.”
“Jacob Lev. LAPD.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about taking forever to get back to you. I’m getting crushed here.”
“Understood. Talk to me.”
Having reviewed the Casey Klute file, Band could confirm that the murder matched the pattern of the others: bound and unbound, throat slit, east-facing corpse.
“Nice gal, lots of friends, drove a pink Corvette, ran her own party-planning business, a talent for consistently picking the shittiest guys imaginable. Ex-boyfriend doing five to ten for possession with intent. Ex-husband with four priors, including one for armed robbery. I thought for sure he was our man but he was out of the country when it happened. After that we kinda ran out of air. Still bugs the hell out of me. I’m glad someone’s on it. Just not me.”