her ass off for us. What more is there to say? Today she’s going to take Loretta to the Craft & Folk Art Museum on Wilshire. Carmen has her own private prescription for keeping my wife healthy. You take her out, you show her the town, she says. Carmen doesn’t live with us, although I would love that. No, she shuttles back and forth between two jobs and a family. There’s a husband somewhere named Antonio who drives a truck up and down Interstate 5. She never talks about him, except once when she let it slip that he sometimes drinks too much beer. No good, the cerveza, she says, no good that man to drink and drive a truck. Carmen is the soul of responsibility. She has saved absolutely every penny she’s ever made, and I know beyond doubt that one day soon she will own the world.
I round up my car keys, kiss Loretta goodbye on the cheek. She doesn’t ask where I’m going. And I wouldn’t know what to tell her anyway. That I’m off to catch a killer? That she should wish me luck? Forget about it. She and Carmen have a date. I head down the elevator to the parking lot.
Malloy’s right, of course. He’s always right. This isn’t an old man’s game anymore, if it ever was. Still, Howie Rothbart and his shul are writing me checks to crack this thing open, so what am I supposed to do? And now there are two bodies to think about. Mr. R. will not be amused. Guess I’d better start with him.
I drive east on 3rd. Traffic is light for a change, but it’s early. You can always find a traffic jam in LA if you look for one, but for some reason, not here, not now. This is a blessing. I pass the coffee shops, the hair salons, the auto repair joints, the designer furniture outlets, and all the commercial this-that-and-the-other. Soon I’m breezing by old comfortable California bungalows from the thirties and forties, some in great shape, others like crumbling sandcastles, all surrounded by dense foliage. At last I turn onto Windsor and find myself on a calm, well-manicured street. A rich man’s neighborhood. There are older Mediterranean houses with colorful awnings and arched windows. In the front yards, with their rakes and leaf blowers, there is no shortage of Mexican gardeners looking over their shoulders, sweating in the sunlight, hard at work.
Rothbart’s home is a few blocks south of Beverly. He knows I’m coming, and he opens the door the moment I hit the buzzer. “You’re early,” he says, taking my hand. “Come, sit down, let’s talk.”
I’ve only ever seen him in a suit, but today he’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants, and flip-flops. His hair is wet like he just emerged from a dip in the pool.
We step down into a broad sunken den. There’s a reddish Persian carpet on the floor. It’s about half a football field long and must have cost a small fortune. The beige curtains are drawn, there are fresh-cut flowers in vases, and bookcases filled to the brim with Judaica. Ditto for art on the walls. It’s all original. All modern Israeli stuff. Oil paintings, no prints, no posters. His taste is not my taste, but when I think about it, it’s not as bad as it looks.
“How about some iced tea,” he says as though it were a given. “My wife made a pitcher before she left for work. This heat is awful. So strange for October, don’t you think?”
I nod. He disappears into the kitchen and comes back a minute later with two tall glasses.
We sit and talk. I break the news to him about Dr. Ewing. I tell him in an off-the-cuff way. I don’t try to give him the big picture. I don’t say that the cops think they have a double homicide on their hands. But Howie went to college; he can put two and two together.
“Oh dear God,” he says now, shaking his head. He closes his eyes and starts mumbling something under his breath. Maybe he’s weeping, maybe he’s saying kaddish for her. I can hardly hear him. I don’t know. Actually, there’s a lot I don’t know about Howie Rothbart, come to think of it. Just that the people at Shir Emet like him and he obviously likes them back. Enough to be president anyway, which, let me tell you, is a thankless job.
I wait until he’s finished mumbling. When he opens his eyes, again I say, “Howie, I need you to help me with something. It may be nothing, just a little bump in the road, but I’m trying to add it up.”
“What do you want to know, Amos?”
“Well,” I say, “I’m trying to connect the dots, and each time I do, something’s wrong. It’s kind of like I don’t have all the tools I need. Like I’m trying to make a violin, only all I have is a hacksaw. It doesn’t sound so good. You know what I’m saying?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“I’m missing things, Howie. I’m missing information that should be sitting right there on the surface.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, how well did you know Dr. Ewing, for example? I mean, you knew she was the rabbi’s doctor. You gave me her name and an address and a phone number when I asked. How’d that happen?”
Rothbart tugged at his chin. “Actually, I referred the rabbi to her in May. He was looking around for someone else to see.”
“Because?”
“Because he was having chest pains. Not so surprising, given the kind of foods he ate and how much he smoked. You’d think in this day and age people would know better.”
“You would. A rabbi, especially.”
He takes a long swallow of iced tea. In his other life he’s an attorney, so maybe it’s not so strange that he chooses his words before he speaks. “I’ll be honest with you. Ezra wasn’t like you or me. He wasn’t someone who blended into the scenery. You couldn’t help but notice him.”
“I don’t know what that means. Is that good or bad? What are you talking about?”
“Ezra loved people,” Howie says. “He loved ideas. He loved to eat and drink and argue. I remember the first day we met, he reminded me of Zero Mostel. You remember him—the actor from Fiddler on the Roof? You know what I mean? Larger than life.”
“Maybe he should have gone into show biz.”
“Well, he did, in a sense. I’m telling you, the congregation adored him. On Friday nights it was standing room only.”
“What about his previous doctor? Do you know his name?”
“No. Ezra said they’d had some kind of falling-out. All I could gather from him was that he was through, he was fed up. He hadn’t seen a doctor in over a year. But when you’re hurting—you know how it is. He wanted another opinion.”
“Because the old doc didn’t care for his bad habits? Is that it?”
“No one cared for his habits, Amos. But some of us put up with them.”
“And Dr. Ewing? You just pull her name out of a hat or what?”
Howie shakes his head and half-smiles. “No, no, no. Dora Ewing was leasing one of the office spaces I own in Culver City. She was new in town, not long out of college. Her name just popped into my head.” He takes another gulp of tea. “I was trying to help. He wanted a second opinion, her name came up, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, evidently last night someone else didn’t care much for her opinion.”
That startles Howie, brings him straight back down to earth. “This is terrible,” he says. The color drains from his face. And for one tender moment I think I see a different
