A Hole In One, Paul Weininger [top novels to read txt] 📗

“One more thing, Detective, I offered to divorce my husband and Neil told me not to.”

Pratt responded with “Okay, let’s just ride this out and see what your husband does. He may want to divorce you.”

Neil saw Carol come out of the detective’s interrogation room and waited for her to come outdoors and away from Pratt’s front window. She walked toward him as he was standing across the street in front of a mechanic’s garage. They met halfway, hugged, and kissed. She told Neil she admitted their affair to Pratt. Now both understood that they no longer had anything to lose had they been seen together. The news would probably get out from someone at the police department anyway. Still, they decided to keep their relationship quiet to cool off additional rumors. It was bad enough the police knew; they didn’t need to leave themselves open to Jules and the rest of the congregation finding out. They agreed to stop seeing each other until things quieted down.

Nineteen

“911, what’s your emergency?” asked the operator.

“There’s a large fire burning in my neighbor’s backyard,” answered Frank Weissman.

Frank, who lived in Flagstaff next door to Bloom, reported the fire out of concern that it might spread to his own yard. The local community’s police black and whites arrived first in less than five minutes. After they doused the fire using one of the extinguishers they carry in their trunk, they radioed the fire department and notified them that it was not necessary for them to come. Then they contacted Flagstaff Sheriff Tambor to report they found human remains under the ashes. Tambor, hearing the unusual crime report, got on his radio and directed Detective Jason Somerville to that address and told the two black and whites to remain where they were until Somerville arrived. Jason called Pratt, whom he often partnered with on certain cases, and told him about what he found at the home of a major Sedona citizen. Pratt suggested they wait until the next day to meet, since he needed time to finish preparing for an upcoming court case. After giving the address, he responded to Pratt that he would meet him there the next morning at 9:00. He also told Pratt the premises belonged to Rabbi Neil Bloom.

After the call to Pratt, Somerville went to the front door of the neighbor that had reported the fire. No one answered. Jason walked around the premises looking and knocking against every window but saw nothing unusual and assumed the owner of the property was out. Jason then directed the two black and whites to protect the area to assure that nothing touched anything in the backyard, “not even a deer.” He told the officers on the scene to call for replacements before going off duty so the area would stay secure until he and Detective Pratt arrived the next morning.

The next day Jason showed Pratt the Rabbi’s backyard. Seeing what they did told them they needed to speak to the witnesses next door while everything was still clear in their memory banks. Colleen Weissman answered the door and invited them in. Frank entered the room and the retired couple sat in their easy chairs while inviting the detectives to “Please sit on the couch.”

Frank and his wife tried to answer whatever the police wanted from them. Frank explained he was the one who called 911 near eleven o’clock the previous morning and described his observations to the detectives.

“Yesterday morning while I was picking some weeds in my front yard, I saw the Rabbi next door in his backyard. I think it was around 10:30 when I saw the Rabbi dragging what appeared to be a large object wrapped in a tarp and place it in his backyard. My being in the front and his being in the back did not obstruct my view of what he was doing. It was kind of a diagonal view,” said Frank. “He must’ve come out one of his sliding doors in the back of his home, and that’s when I saw him place the bundle on the ground on top of a layer of leaves. He then covered it with tons more dead leaves and pine needles right onto the pile, then poured some liquid all over it and lit it on fire. I called Colleen out to see it burning because the fire seemed a little too high for my comfort. I assumed he was probably burning an old and no longer legible tattered Torah. As Bloom returned to his front door, rather than enter through the rear sliding doors, I asked him what he was doing. The Rabbi confirmed that it was two old Torahs he was burning.”

Jason inquired, “Why do you think he was doing this so early in the morning?”

“I asked him that. He told me that they must be disposed of before sundown. However, he told me he had to burn them early since he would not be home before sundown due to going away for a couple of days to visit family and administer a funeral service,” Frank replied.

“And you believed the Rabbi when he told you that? Didn’t you think it was suspicious that he did something like that so early in the morning?”

“They are rather large and probably very heavy,” Frank Weissman pointed out. “In many synagogues they can be up to four feet long, top to bottom. I’ve seen Rabbis during services holding them with both arms. I am Jewish, but I’m not an expert on all the rules and customs of my religion. I thought Rabbis must know how to dispose of their old, no longer useable Torahs, just as we do to a worn-out American flag, which must be burned when it’s disposed of. He certainly wasn’t acting as if he was trying to hide his actions. Otherwise, I assume, he would have returned into his house using the back door. I had no reason to be suspicious about anything at that moment.”

“So,