Restoreth My Soul (Psalm 23 Mysteries), Page 3

  “I was in the way,” Jeremiah explained as he took a seat beside him.

  Mark nodded. “I know the feeling.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  That made Mark smile. “Don’t worry. They’ll clear out of there soon enough and the place will be all yours.”

  “Can’t wait to be all alone in a dead man’s house reading his life story,” Jeremiah said, letting the sarcasm through.

  A squad car pulled up and an officer Jeremiah had seen earlier got out. He made a beeline for Mark and handed him a digital recorder which he in turn handed to Jeremiah. Jeremiah tucked it into his shirt pocket where it fit comfortably.

  “I’ve got the ladder in the trunk,” the officer said.

  “Thanks, Liam,” Mark responded.

  Liam held out a brown paper bag which Mark took from him. “Togo’s sandwiches, the best you can get. I had him get roast beef.”

  He handed a sandwich to Jeremiah who thanked him.

  “I know it’s not lunch with your lady love, but at least it’s something.”

  Jeremiah knew from experience that any protestations or sarcasm would just egg Mark on so he let it go without comment. He tore into the sandwich and had to admit that Mark was right about how good it was. The meat was flavorful and the bread was incredibly fresh but still substantial, like bread should be. He ate slowly, focusing on each bite. He had a lot of work ahead of him that he wasn’t looking forward to so he tried to stay in the moment, focusing on the good.

  Finally he was done and there was no delaying anymore. The body had been removed a few minutes before and almost everyone was clearing out. He stood reluctantly. “Time to get to work.”

  Liam got the ladder for him and carried it inside, setting it up where Jeremiah instructed. Mark trailed inside. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

  “I don’t need a babysitter, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Mark nodded. “If you read anything interesting, call me.”

  “Will do, Detective,” Jeremiah said.

  He climbed up on the ladder and got as comfortable as he could as he found the first sentence in the room. He turned on the recorder and began to translate into it.

  “My name is Heinrich Beck. I was born in Hamburg, Germany. My parents owned a small brewery.”

  Jeremiah hit pause and looked down at Mark. “At least you have a name if you didn’t before. That is assuming the dead guy is the same one who wrote this. Given the bloody letters I’m guessing he is.”

  “And you’re right, he’s from Germany,” Mark said with a grunt.

  “You want to stay and hear the rest?”

  “No, I’ve got to follow up on a few other things. Like I said, though, call if you get anything of interest.”

  “I will,” Jeremiah said.

  “Call when you’re leaving tonight and I’ll come by.”

  Jeremiah nodded and turned back to the wall.

  A few minutes later Mark and the other officers cleared out leaving Jeremiah alone with the words of a dead man. He worked as fast as he could, but he had to keep moving the ladder. It was getting tiresome and the strain was beginning to take a toll.

  He finally took a break and walked around the rest of the downstairs. It was amazing to him how barren, sterile, the rest of the house seemed. In the dining room his eyes gravitated to a tiny speck of black on a far wall. He walked over and inspected it. It turned out to be a small hole, probably left by a nail.

  Something was hanging here once, he realized.

  He wondered what it could have been. A painting, maybe a family portrait. It could have been a picture of Heinrich’s wife.

  Jeremiah touched the wall, wondering where whatever it had been was now. He was about to turn and head back to work when he thought he heard something. He stopped, straining his ears to listen.

  It came again, a step, very faint, outside.

  Was one of the officers coming back to gather more evidence?

  He could hear more steps now, quiet, as though someone were trying to be furtive.

  Maybe the police weren’t the only ones interested in how Heinrich had died or what mysteries the walls of writing held.

  Whoever it was they were just on the other side of the front door now. Jeremiah flattened himself against the wall, waiting for them to try the doorknob.

  Moments later the knob turned slowly and Jeremiah coiled all his muscles, preparing to strike if need be. The door was shoved open and he saw a figure standing there, holding something large in front of them.

  He lunged forward as a woman screamed.

  3

  A figure lunged at her and Cindy screamed. The pizza box she had in her hands went crashing to the floor as something hit it. She threw her hands up in front of her face to ward off the impending attack.

  It didn’t come.

  “Cindy?”

  She lowered her hands slowly. “Jeremiah?”

  He was standing, looking at her in surprise, and she realized he had been the one who had lunged out at her. “What are you doing?” she gasped.

  “You startled me. I thought maybe you were the killer coming back to search the house or something,” he admitted.

  “I was bringing you a pizza for dinner since we missed out on lunch,” she said. It sounded ludicrous, but it was true.

  “How did you know where to find me?” he asked.

  “Mark called and let me know.”

  “What, why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She dropped her eyes to the pizza, feeling slightly dazed. There were cold sodas in a bag still hanging from her elbow along with her purse and they jostled her ribs.

  They just stood and stared at each other for a moment. Cindy’s heart was still pounding in her chest and Jeremiah looked incredibly tense. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said as he bent down and retrieved the pizza box.

  “Good,” she said, smiling in return.

  “Sorry about that. Being here alone made me jumpy I guess.”

  “Oh, with good reason. Everything we’ve experienced. I should have knocked or something, but I felt weird enough ducking under the police tape and I wasn’t sure what the procedure was.”

  “It’s my fault. Now that you’re here, though, let’s get busy on this pizza. I’m starving.”

  Jeremiah led the way further into the house. The first thing she noticed was the lack of pretty much anything.

  “Is this house up for sale or something?”

  “Apparently not. He just lived like this.”

  “Bizarre.”

  He turned and looked at her. “No, you haven’t seen bizarre yet.”

  She followed him into a room with what seemed to be black walls and she stopped in her tracks as she realized the walls were actually covered in writing. “You’re right, this is definitely more bizarre.”

  She took a closer look at the tiny letters. “Mark wants you to translate all of this?” she asked in amazement.

  “Yeah, lucky me,” he said.

  “But that’s going to take forever.”

  “It’s certainly feeling like it,” he said.

  She turned and saw the taped outline of a body on the carpet. She felt her stomach twist. On the wall there were letters spelled out in red that had to be blood.

  “I’m sorry, let’s go back to the kitchen,” Jeremiah said quickly, peering at her with concerned eyes.

  She managed a wan smile. “Yeah, soda goes better with pizza than blood does.”

  They backtracked to the kitchen and Jeremiah set the pizza box down on the counter. Cindy took the Cokes out of the bag while he lifted the lid. “Smells delicious.”

  She smiled, still slightly jittery. “How are things going here?”

  “Tiring and so far fairly boring. I have a feeling I’m just about to get to the interesting parts, though. He’s starting to talk about Wo
rld War II.”

  “So, what exactly happened here?”

  “We’re not getting involved,” he said as he grabbed a piece of pizza.

  “You mean aside from you translating that entire room, at police request,” she said, keeping her voice neutral.

  For a moment she wasn’t sure if he was going to smile or scowl, but finally the corners of his mouth jerked upward.

  “Okay, fine. All we know about the dead guy so far is his name and that he was born and raised in Germany. He appears to have written the word restoration in his own blood as he was dying.”

  “Restoration? He was dying and that’s the word that he bothered to write? Not the name of his killer or a goodbye to someone?” she asked. “That seems weird.”

  “I thought so, too,” Jeremiah said, his forehead creasing in thought. “You know what else is weird?”

  “What?” Cindy asked, grabbing her own slice of pizza. She took a bite and savored it.

  “I actually met him once before.”

  “Where?” she blurted out with her mouth still full. She covered her hand with her mouth, embarrassed at herself.

  Jeremiah didn’t seem to care about her lack of manners. Then again, the two of them had been through so much maybe they were well beyond that point. The thought gave her a warm feeling inside.

  “Memorial Day weekend at the Synagogue,” he said.

  The warm feeling was quickly doused by what felt like ice water rushing through her veins. She still felt a little sick to her stomach when she thought about what had happened to her on vacation in Hawaii and she still had nightmares where she saw Jeremiah starting to drown.

  She shook her head, trying to clear it of the images that tormented her more often than she would ever admit. Again Jeremiah didn’t seem to notice her distress, clearly lost in his own memories.

  “He came up to me after services, shook my hand and told me how important he thought it was that we had met. He wanted to talk to me, but he seemed to be worried about people overhearing the conversation. We scheduled an appointment for that Wednesday, but he wouldn’t give me his phone number or any way to reach him.”

  “And you missed that appointment because you were busy rescuing me,” she said, guilt surging through her.

  “Apparently he missed it, too. Marie said he never showed up and I hadn’t seen or heard from him since. He seemed so insistent, though, that it was important. And he spoke German when he was flustered.”

  He turned and looked at her. “Are you okay?”

  She set her slice of pizza down and nodded around the lump in her throat. “I’m glad that he didn’t make the meeting either. I would hate to think that he needed your help and because of me-” she broke off, unable to continue.

  Jeremiah dropped his slice onto the pizza box and put his hands on her face, tilting her eyes up to meet his. “Listen to me. What happened to him had nothing to do with you. Or with me. He broke the appointment, too, and he’s had months to reach back out, but he hasn’t. This is just some terrible coincidence here. You already carry around more guilt than you deserve, don’t you even think about adding this to it.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He continued to stare at her and she felt like he was looking into her very soul. Jeremiah seemed to understand her on a much deeper level than anyone ever had.

  “And even if this isn’t a coincidence, it doesn’t matter. You are the most important person in my life,” he said.

  Her breath caught in her throat and she became intensely aware of his hands pressing against her cheeks, the warmth radiating from his body as he stood so close to her. She stared deeply into his eyes and felt tears begin to sting her own as the truth took her by storm. “You’re the most important person in my life, too,” she whispered.

  “Good, then we have an understanding,” he said, expression intense.

  Then he dropped his hands and took a small step backward. She felt her heart beginning to pound all over again. Just what kind of understanding did he think they had?

  He resumed eating and after a moment so did she.

  They finished dinner in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. After Jeremiah had drank the last of his soda he gave her a lopsided grin. “No rest for the wicked, isn’t that what they say? I think it’s time for me to get back to work.”

  Cindy followed him back into the other room. The sun was sinking in the sky and the room was getting darker. The seemingly endless summer days were beginning to grow shorter and soon winter would be upon them. Jeremiah flicked on the overhead lights in the room and she was glad to see that they provided more than enough light for him to continue to work by.

  He pushed a ladder to the side. “I’ve finally reached the place where I can read the letters while standing on the ground,” he explained.

  “That’s got to be a relief,” she said.

  “More than you can guess.”

  He pulled out his recorder and began to translate. She listened as she took a closer look around the room. He hadn’t asked her to leave and she was in no mood to, not after whatever it was had just happened in the kitchen. Every time she started to think about it, though, she felt like she was having trouble catching her breath. Maybe it was best not to think too closely on it or read too much into it.

  She saw the bloody word that he had said meant restoration. She still couldn’t fathom why someone who was dying would choose to make that his last word.

  “Jeremiah?”

  He paused and she glanced at him. He pushed a button on the digital recorder. “What is it?”

  “You said he was born and raised in Germany and that he spoke German when he was agitated?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all of this is Hebrew. Was he Jewish?”

  “Mark asked the same question and I told him I was almost certain that he wasn’t.”

  “Then why bother learning Hebrew? I mean, it’s not the easiest language in the world. You have to learn a completely different alphabet and teach yourself to write backward, from right to left, don’t you?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Why bother if you weren’t Jewish?”

  “Maybe he was some sort of scholar,” he suggested.

  “I guess that could be true,” she said. It didn’t feel right, though.

  “If he is, I’m sure we’ll find out when we get to that part of his story,” Jeremiah said.

  She continued to stare at the bloody letters on the wall. She knew what it was like to believe that your life was ending, that you were dying. She knew the pain, the fear, the panic.

  “If he spoke German when agitated, why didn’t he write this out in German as he was dying?”

  Jeremiah came to stand beside her. “That’s a good question,” he said after a moment.

  “I mean, he had to be afraid, in shock, wouldn’t it have been more natural to write his dying words in his native language?”

  “It would have,” Jeremiah said, his voice taking on a darker quality to it.

  She glanced up at him. His face had hardened. Moments like this really drove home to her how little she knew of the life he had lived before. He had grown up in Israel where the threat of violence hung forever over his head.

  “So, there must be a really important reason he wrote his final word in Hebrew.”

  “Your logic makes sense. I just don’t see what that could be.”

  “Maybe after you’ve translated more we’ll be able to figure that out.”

  “We?” he asked, face softening again as he turned to look at her. “Frankly, I was planning on turning over the recorder to Mark and washing my hands of this mess as soon as I was done.”

  “The man came to you wanting to talk. You can’t tell me that you aren’t even the least little bit curious,” she said.

  “Would it help if I told you I wasn’t?”

  “No, I’d just call you a liar.”

  “Okay, I admit that I am curious. But that’s not enou
gh for me to risk my life or yours any more than I have to.”

  “And I have had a lifetime of being in danger,” she said fervently. “But I really think this is significant, it means something.”

  “You might be right. Tell you what? Let me finish translating all of this,” he said, gesturing around the room, “and then we can talk about what we will or will not do.”

  “Great,” she said. “I’d hate to think of his killer going free if we could do something to catch him.”

  “Believe it or not, I do understand. It’s just that we don’t have to be involved this time and I’d love to keep it that way. Plus, this is one of the busiest times of the year for me and I can’t shirk my responsibilities to chase after phantoms.”

  “Really? This is usually one of the slower times for us.”

  “You don’t have five major holidays all happening in the span of about three weeks.”

  “Five? Five?” she asked incredulously.

  “Yes, five,” he said, sounding suddenly very tired.

  “What are they?”

  “Rosh Hashanah starts in three days and at the culmination of it is Yom Kippur. Less than a week later is Sukkot. Then immediately after that is Shmini Atzeret followed by Simchat Torah. And there’s also a fast, Tzom Gedaliah, in there.”

  Cindy stared at him in amazement. “I confess the only two I’ve even heard of are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and even those I’m fuzzy on what they’re all about.”

  “I’d be happy to tell you all about them, but if I don’t get this done before Rosh Hashanah I’m going to have a big problem.”

  “I’ll take a rain check then,” she said.

  “It’s a deal. Now I have to get back to this. You’re welcome to stay, though, if you don’t mind listening.”

  She smiled. “I’d like that. Who knows, maybe I can figure out why this word was so important to him.”

  “Works for me.”

  He turned back to the wall and began reading into his recorder again. Cindy listened as she continued to look around the room, trying to see if there was anything else that seemed out of place.

  There was nothing, so she finally sat down and continued to listen as Jeremiah read aloud what life had been like for the young man growing up in war torn Germany. He expressed so many emotions, confusion, fear, anger, and then, at the last, hatred.