is asking around about that. But no real enemies.”
“Do you know anything about Naomi’s social life? Did she date anyone here?”
Zev blushed as he answered. “That’s outside my calling. I simply wouldn’t know.”
“Nothing you observed in her actions with other students? Nothing she said?”
“I had the impression there was a man in her life. Not here at JTS. I had the sense that he was somewhat older than she. That there was something inappropriate about the relationship, or she might have been more open in discussing it with me.”
I saw Mercer jotting down notes. He must have wondered, as I did, how serious Naomi’s involvement with Daniel’s stepfather was, and whether it had been ongoing in the recent past.
“Did she ever talk with you about her brother?”
“This is the first I’m hearing she had any siblings. Naomi never mentioned him.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“One week ago, to this very day. My course is given on Wednesday, and she had missed it. I saw her in the library and asked if she was okay. She didn’t usually cut classes.”
“Did she tell you why she had?”
Zev Levy blushed again. “I’m sorry that our last conversation was a bit confrontational. She didn’t like answering to me. She thought I was prying. Perhaps she thought I was—how would you say? ...” He looked at Mercer and raised his shoulders.
“Coming on to her?”
“Maybe so. I can assure you that I was not. But she snapped when I asked how come she had cut class if everything was okay.”
“She got short with you?” I said.
“I misspoke. Out of character for me, by hindsight. Completely out of line.”
The earnest young rabbi seemed shaken by the recollection.
“Naomi told me she had a friend who was ill—a guy. She said something about the fact that he was being treated at Bellevue. I should have just left it at that.”
Bellevue was a city hospital, the oldest public medical facility in the country. It had a grim history and was not a place in which you wanted a loved one to wind up. Bellevue was best known as a psychiatric facility for the indigent.
“What did she say about her friend?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t talk to me about him after I opened my mouth. ‘What is he crazy, this guy?’ I should have held my tongue before speaking. I just couldn’t think of anyone being treated at Bellevue except a psych case. ‘What do you need with a madman?’ That’s the last thing I said to her.”
TWENTY-ONE
ZEV Levy had walked us back to the building entrance. Before we said good-bye, he had something else to tell us, a bit sheepishly. “I want you to know that I called Naomi a few times over last week-end. I left messages at her home.”
Mike had checked the answering machine at the apartment. There was nothing on it, whether because she had picked up the calls herself or because Daniel had listened and erased them.
“The tech guys in the PD will be able to retrieve those,” Mercer said, half bluff and half wishful thinking. “Remember what you said?”
Levy shifted uncomfortably. “I—uh—I think I just apologized for being so rude. That’s right, I offered to meet her for coffee too. I did try to make a—uh—an appointment.”
“At school?”
He reddened again. “No, down near her apartment. But she never returned my calls. And then, of course—well, the murder. I never saw her again. Maybe I wasn’t so far off when I called her friend a madman.”
“Thanks for your time,” Mercer said. “The Homicide Squad will probably send a few detectives over to talk with some of the students. We’ll try not to intrude too much.”
“Whatever is necessary. We’re very willing to cooperate.”
We made our way back toward Mercer’s car. “You think the rabbi was trying to make an appointment,” Mercer asked, “or a date? Bad choice of words today, that he should have held his ‘tongue.’ ”
“I get that he’s nervous, and that any involvement in a murder case is an extreme situation for Rabbi Levy and for the seminary,” I said. “But it certainly sounds like he had more than a professional attraction to Naomi. Can you push the lieutenant to get some guys up here for a more thorough interview?”
“That and scoring his phone records for starters.”
“I hate how this job makes me distrust everybody. I mean, maybe he was just picking up on her despondency.”
“And maybe he was just picking up on her, Alex. Gotta check it out.”
“I know we do, but