Chapter Ten
CASSIDY
“Where do you want to start, Mike?” I asked the morning after we’d met with Weston Chaudry at Patsy Good’s apartment.
“That all depends. Do you think Chaudry is involved?”
I looked across my desk at my partner of fifteen years. I trusted Mike and his instincts almost as much, if not more, than I’d trusted my buddies on my SEAL team when I’d served all those years ago. Mike had been by my side through thick and thin. I not only counted on him to always back me up, but to be a sounding board with his great judgment and sharp mind. He’d taken me under his wing when I’d been a rookie detective and taught me how to best conduct an investigation. My gut instinct told me that Chaudry had nothing to do with the murder of Abraham Feldman, even though it wasn’t our case to solve. Still, we couldn’t ignore Marigold Bishop’s police sketch, though, it was onlyoneof the things that tied our burglary case to the homicide.
“Honestly, no, something tells me Chaudry has nothing to do with it.”
“What do you make of Patsy Good’s defense of his character?” Mike asked.
I thought about that for a minute. “It’s hard to say, Mike. They’ve hardly known each other for more than a couple of days, but I also think Good has excellent instincts. Candy Sorensen wouldn’t have hired him otherwise.”
Mike pursed his lips, wearing a thoughtful expression I’d come to recognize over the years. My partner never jumped to conclusions, and he’d taught me how to be persistent and patient. “Do you think Good and Chaudry are lovers? They were pretty touchy-feely last night.”
I blew out a long breath and shook my head. “I have no idea if it’s progressed to that yet, but I think they’re well on their way to getting there, Mike.”
Mike grinned. “I have to trust you.”
I smirked. “Why, Mike? Because I’m gay?”
He shrugged. “Don’t you guys have some sort of secret handshake or something?”
I snorted. “Asshole.” I sobered. “Anyway…I don’t think it matters if they’re lovers or not. Patsy did make a good point.”
“Which was?”
“The sketch was made from the memory of a four-year-old.”
Mike nodded. “Okay, you’re right…so, where do we start?”
“I think we should meet with the detective from Hollywood division working the homicide,” I stated. “I don’t know Lance Kershaw, but when I spoke to him on the phone, he seemed willing to sit down and compare notes.”
“Yeah, let’s meet with him. You don’t want to go back and meet with Eli Goldfarb first?” Mike asked.
I thought about it. “I don’t know how helpful it’ll be. Call it a gut instinct, Mike, but I have a strong feeling he wasn’t totally up front when we interviewed him after the robbery at his store. I don’t know that his statement is going to change. It seemed rehearsed. Something was off about him when he sat down withus two weeks ago, and now that we know his father-in-law is Abraham Feldman, I think Goldfarb just might be involved.”
Two weeks ago, we’d been called to the downtown jewelry wholesale district on Sixth and Hill to investigate a burglary which had taken place in the store that Eli Goldfarb shared with his father-in-law, Abraham Feldman. Though we hadn’t had the chance to talk to Feldman because it was the Sabbath and he regularly attended schul with his wife on Saturday mornings, Goldfarbhadbeen working. The two men were Orthodox Hasidic Jews and I’d found it odd that Goldfarb hadn’t also been at temple that morning. I’d worked on the West Side of L.A. for almost twenty years and always had to schedule interviews with Orthodox Jews at times other than between sundown on Friday and nightfall on Saturday. To learn that Eli Goldfarb was working on a Saturday morning felt extremely off to me. However, he did say he wasn’t a particularly observant Jew, only going to services when his wife was around to prod him and she’d been in Israel visiting family and friends.
Mike frowned. “Why do you think Goldfarb is involved in his father-in-law’s murder?”
I held up a finger. “The first time we interviewed Goldfarb, he said a cache of diamonds had gone missing from his store. And he made sure we knew theonlytwo people with the safe combination were him and his father-in-law. He knew we’d look at his father-in-law first as the culprit.”
I held up another finger. “Secondly…when we went to talk to Goldfarb’s wife, their housekeeper said she was taking a long vacation on a kibbutz in Israel…and that there was no way to contact her, even by phone. If that’s not suspicious, nothing is.” I held up a third finger. “Lastly, Feldman’s murder happened right around the time the store was robbed. Something’s just off about Goldfarb’s story.”
Mike nodded. “It’s hard to imagine that there are no phones where she is.”
“More and more, this is sounding like Goldfarb has something to hide,” I said.
“Do you think she knows her father was murdered?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. If she loved her father, I think she’d come back to the States right away.” Another thought crossed my mind. “You don’t think she could be dead too, do you?”
Mike picked up the phone. “I don’t know but there’s one way to find out if she actually left the country. That’s a place to start.” He began punching numbers.
“Who’re you calling?” I asked.
