served as a living area, and a tiny kitchenette. Two doors were opened in the back, revealing a bathroom and a closet. I introduced myself to Daniel, trying to figure whether his reserve was grief or a natural shyness as I expressed my sympathy for his sister’s brutal death.
“May I sit down?”
“Yeah, sure.” He motioned to the chairs, but I chose the side of the bed. I knew I would sink into the shape-shifting beans and end up below eye level with him. Daniel wasn’t ready to sit, answering me but keeping a watch on Mike.
“I’ve got a lot of questions about Naomi that I’d like to ask you,” I said. “Is there anything you want to know before we begin?”
“Nah. The cops told me the stuff about her body,” he said. “I really don’t want to hear any more of that.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“What do you do?”
“Right now I’m a prop guy. Move scenery and equipment at a theater. I’m supposed to start acting classes in the summer.”
“Have you worked at the show very long?”
“It’s a temp job,” he said, scratching his sandy brown hair, which hung below the collar of his sweatshirt in a long, tangled snarl. “I only moved to New York in the fall.”
“From? . . .”
“Chicago. I lived near Chicago with my mother.”
“Does she know about Naomi yet?” I asked, hoping to distract Daniel while Mike lifted a suitcase out of the closet.
“She’s my mother. Not Naomi’s,” Daniel said. “You mind leaving her luggage alone, Detective?”
“All packed up and ready to go,” Mike said. “Your sister do that, or you?”
“Just don’t touch it, okay?” Daniel Gersh walked toward Mike. He was tall and well built, with a jangly kind of energy that made him appear skittish and nervous.
“Ms. Cooper’s talking to you.” Mike backed off the suitcase and walked over to the windowed wall that housed the sink and small oak dining table.
The apartment was neat and clean. I knew it would be gone over by crime-scene detectives and was confident—as Mike was— that Daniel wasn’t leaving with the suitcase or any other property of his late sister’s, if that was what he had come here to do. Nothing appeared to be out of place. It didn’t look like the young woman had been butchered in her home.
“Can I just get you to focus on some questions that would help us try to figure out what happened to Naomi?” I said.
“Then stop asking about me, okay? What do you want to know about her?”
“Why don’t you start with the family background?”
Daniel had planted himself in the middle of the room. “Naomi’s a lot older than I am. Seven years. My father—our father, I mean—he met her mother in college. Got her pregnant and her family put a lot of pressure on them to get married. So they did. But it didn’t last very long. Like a year after Naomi was born, it was over.”
I could hear the rustling noise as Mike pulled back the shower curtain in the bathroom, and Daniel hurried over to look at what he was doing.
“The toilet’s still running,” Mike said. “What’d you flush before you let us in?”
Daniel held up his arms as if puzzled. “Like, what are you talking about? Maybe it’s just broken.”
“Drugs? Pills? Why’re you so jumpy, Daniel?”
“I’m not jumpy, man. I’m still, like, shocked about this.”
“Then answer Ms. Cooper’s questions.”
“I take it your father remarried,” I said. “Did you and Naomi grow up near each other?”
“At first, yeah.” Daniel settled himself in, leaning against the refrigerator and lighting a cigarette. “My mom and dad lived in a suburb of Chicago. Naomi’s mother taught at the university for a while—they lived in Hyde Park. Then, like my dad said, she was always trying to find herself.”
“Naomi’s mother?”
“Yeah. Her name was Rachel. My dad used to joke that he was glad she did eventually find herself—and that it was as far away from him as possible.” Daniel inhaled and smiled, his affect as inappropriate to the situation as his remarks.
“Where did they go?” I asked.
“They made aliyah, Ms. Cooper. You know what that is?”
“They immigrated to Israel.” I knew the Hebrew word that was a basic tenet of Zionism and would explain the Israeli Law of Return to Mike later on. It allowed anyone of Jewish descent the right to settle in Israel, to return to the Promised Land.
“Rachel took Naomi away with her? There wasn’t a custody battle?”