Blood on the Sun (CSI: NY) Read Free Page B

Flack.
    “Repairs,” said the rabbi.
    “Asher Glick?”
    The rabbi nodded with understanding.
    “Asher Glick was a respected member of our congregation,” said the rabbi. “Devout without being pedantic.”
    “What did he do for a living?” Flack said, looking at the bimah, the raised platform on which the simple pulpit sat. In the wall behind the bimah was a recessed alcove with a sliding wooden door.
    “The Torah,” said the rabbi, following Flack’s eyes.
    “The first five books of the Scriptures,” said Flack. “Transcribed by a sopher, a scribe, by hand on a single sheet of parchment using a quill pen. He devotes his life to slowly hand-printing the five books on a scroll. And if he makes even the smallest error, he has to discard the scroll and start again.”
    “It must be pristine,” said the rabbi. “Like life, there is no going back. We have four Torahs. Your partner taught you something of our religion.”
    “A little,” said Flack. “What did Mr. Glick do for a living?”
    “Furniture,” said the rabbi. “He bought antique furniture at estate sales, shops, usually from people who had no idea of the value of what they were selling. I am told he had a brilliant eye for what lay beneath a veneer of paint, polish, misadventures and neglect. He then found buyers who he knew would be interested in his acquisitions and the buyers would restore the pieces and sell them.”
    Inside the library, Stella and Aiden looked down at the body. It was time to call the paramedics and have them take the dead man away.
    But Stella found herself studying the corpse. Something was wrong. They had missed something.
    “How long has he been dead?” Stella asked.
    Aiden had taken the dead man’s temperature.
    “About two hours,” Aiden said.
    “Those nails wouldn’t have killed him,” Stella said. “And he didn’t call for help.”
    Stella knelt next to the body and gently lifted the head. Beneath it was a small pool of blood. Aiden had examined the body. Aiden had missed it.
    Aiden knew why she had missed it. No sleep. Up all night in bed. Not alone. This morning, still hazy after two cups of coffee, she had been thinking of ways to tell him that it was over, that she didn’t want to see him again. She wanted to let him down without pain, but she hadn’t thought of a way. What she had done was foul up on the job.
    “Bullet holes in the back of the head,” said Stella. “Close together. No exit wounds.”
    She looked at Aiden, who was staring at the corpse.
    “No harm, no foul,” said Stella. “You all right?”
    Aiden nodded, went for her kit to take more photographs and to vacuum the dead man’s clothes. She also took samples of the thin layer of sawdust on the floor next to a makeshift carpenter’s bench.
    Three minutes later Aiden and Stella came out of the library. In addition to their kits, Aiden carried a plastic bag with a hammer inside and another one filled with nails. Stella carried the now folded chair.
    The old rabbi and Flack were waiting for them, steaming cups of coffee in their hands. Aiden moved toward the door at the back of the synagogue to call in the paramedics.
    “What do those Hebrew words mean?” asked Stella. “The ones printed by the body.”
    “Ein tov she-ein bo ra,” said the rabbi. “ ‘There is no good with no evil in it.’ It’s a Kabbalah saying.”
    “So the killer was Jewish,” said Flack.
    “Not necessarily,” said the rabbi. “The sole purpose of those words in Hebrew may well have been to make you think the killer was a Jew.”
    “You’d make a good detective,” said Flack.
    “The Talmud teaches us to be wary of simple answers,” said the rabbi. “When can we have the body?”
    “Maybe three days,” said Stella.
    “Unacceptable,” said the rabbi. “He must be buried by tomorrow.”
    “Wrapped in a linen shroud,” said Flack. “In a plain pine box. No embalming.”
    “He must be returned to the earth from which he came as soon as