Zev Einhorn had just beaten Joseph “Hack” Hackford in a particularly grueling game of chess when a persistent knocking at their apartment door interrupted his moment of gloating.
“Don’t get up, Pharaoh,” he said when it appeared clear his roommate had no interest in discovering whoever might be on the other side, banging away. “Let me do all the work, just like my ancestors back in ancient Egypt.”
“You got it, Yidkid,” said Hack with a grin, surprised at Zev’s use of Pharaoh instead of his usual moniker, Goy Boy, goodheartedly mocking his non-Jewish status. “I’m not expecting anyone so it’s probably for you.”
The visitor rang the doorbell repeatedly.
“Yeah, my people aren’t going to ring a doorbell on a Saturday,” the lanky, bearded, ex-Hasid scoffed as he headed to the foyer.
“Not your people anymore,” Hack called out.
“Wrong. Always my people. No longer my rules,” Zev called back.
He peeked through the peephole and his jaw dropped. A Hasidic Jew he didn’t recognize stared back, sporting reflective sunglasses. As if sensing his disguise might be off-putting, the stranger lifted his shades and Zev threw the door open to greet Josef Schechter, a close friend, at least before the exile.
Once his father had ejected him from their Hasidic Brooklyn home, citing Zev’s “unacceptable” worldly views and broad yet still unexplored sexual leanings, the community had shunned and disowned him, as was customary. Since his departure, Zev had adopted a secular lifestyle and hadn’t heard from anyone except occasionally, his mother. A visit from Josef, especially on the Sabbath, was inconceivable.
“We have a situation, and you may be the only one who can help us,” Schechter explained as he brusquely pushed past Zev into the apartment. Bearded and sporting payis or sidelocks, he wore the traditional white shirt, long black jacket over black pants and high-crowned felt hat. The fringes of his prayer shawl swung as he made his way into the living room.
“You should answer your door quicker. Everyone at home thinks I’m visiting a friend’s shul. What if someone saw and reported me? Every putz has a phone with a camera these days, and access to social media. One photo gets out, branded with a Saturday date, and I’m dead.”
“Whatever’s up must be super important for you to break the law of traveling on the Sabbath. Why not just contact me on WhatsApp?”
“So, there’s proof we spoke? No way.”
Zev held out his hand. “How are you, my friend?”
Josef bypassed the shake in favor of an embrace. “I’ve missed you, Zev.”
“Certainly, a pang of nostalgia is not what’s brought you out. What’s this situation that’s troubling you so?”
Schechter’s face grew solemn. “You remember Yossi Broder?”
“Isn’t he the one who left Williamsburg to marry a girl out in the Midwest and then joined the Bais Yisroel congregation?”
“That’s right, first he left us and then he left Bais Yisroel a year later. And now he’s dead. Poisoned.”
“No!” Zev gasped as his stomach plummeted. He leaned on a chair for support. Murder didn’t happen in the Hasidic community, even when someone changed sects or left completely. Shunned yes, slain, no.
Schechter waited a beat for the news to sink in before continuing. “We all heard about how you and your friends saved the Rendell heiress from being murdered a few months ago. That’s why I’m here. No one outside the community is going to spend much time investigating the death of an Orthodox Jew. We need you to go out to Minneapolis and figure out what happened.”
“There are Jews in Minnesota?” Hack said with incredulity, having overheard the last few snippets of the heated conversation.
“Who’s the shegetz?” asked Josef, eyeing Hack with suspicion and labeling him with a derogatory word for a non-Jew.
Zev gestured toward Hack like he was Vanna, exposing a vowel. “Josef, let me introduce you to my roommate, Hack.”
Hack extended an unreciprocated hand and then retracted it as the visitor scowled.
“Don’t be like that,” Zev admonished. “After I left Brooklyn, he and his friend, Mackenzie O’Malley, took me in. They’re part of my crime-fighting team. So why not answer Hack’s question—he’s only trying to help,”
“Crime fighting team?” Hack mouthed, raising his brow.
“Fine,” said Josef, disregarding Hack’s reaction. “There are about 45,000 Jews in the Twin Cities area. A fraction of them are Hasidic; most live within a one-mile section of St. Louis Park on the west side of town.”
“Huh, learn something new every day,” said Hack, regrouping. “Let me call our third, um, associate, and then we can all sit down and hash out the details of this murder.”
Zev smiled as Kenzie walked in from her job at the shelter for displaced LGBTQIA2S+ youth, figuring Josef had never seen a woman like her before. As usual, she was clad in her skinny black jeans and a black button-down blouse—the height of militant chic—which complimented her buzz cut and facial hardware. To his credit, Josef didn’t criticize her appearance in Yiddish, but merely stood up and nodded his greeting. Having learned from Zev that Hasidic men did not shake hands with the opposite sex, Kenzie nodded back instead of extending her arm.
“What’s this I hear about a murder in Minneapolis?” she asked, adopting the confident detective persona Hack had advised over the phone. “But first, who wants something to drink?” She strolled into the kitchen, pulled out four bottles of water, and brought them back to share with the others.
“I know more rumor than fact,” said Josef, opening a Dasani and taking a swig. “But in the community, our rumors are usually pretty accurate. Yossi Broder apparently strayed from orthodoxy once he left Brooklyn. Part of that involved watching television, including the new shows on Netflix—Shtisel and Unorthodox—that we understand glamorize our ultra-conservative community. He thought he could capitalize on the ways those shows fascinate the goyim, you non-Jews. Entrepreneur that he was, he made some deals with local clothing factories and stores, and they started manufacturing and marketing Hasidic clothing as the newest fashion trend. Long skirts, modest tops, wigs for the women. Traditional long coats, black pants, and kippot for the men. Even shtreimels at $1,000 a pop.”
“Kippot are skull caps? And shtreimels are those fur hats, yes?” asked Hack.
“If he isn’t the maven,” Josef sarcastically commented to Zev.
“I’ve taught him well,” said Zev with pride.
“Anyway, this fad starts catching on. The newest thing, you know…and while Minnesota is not usually on the cutting edge of fashion trends, it makes sense—Minneapolis was a world hub for hipsters, and just look at their beards and hats. The Hasidim really were the original hipsters, weren’t they?”
Hack nodded with a smirk. “Sounds like your pal Yossi graduated from the Minneapolis School of Cultural Appropriation and Design.”
“Broder even convinced some of the Christian fans of the shows to convert,” Josef continued, ignoring Hack’s crack. “Suddenly, Yiddish courses were popping up and selling out, and the city’s few local shuls and mikvahs—our ritual purification baths,” he explained for Hack and Kenzie’s benefit, “were becoming invaded by what the locals called the New Hasidim. Essentially, pretend Jews. Which, as a private, insular people, was the last thing the traditional Hasidim wanted.
“Broder secretly stayed connected with a few close friends over WhatsApp—I guess they’re less paranoid than me—and told them he was on the verge of a major deal with a big department store to spread the trend nationwide. Next thing they hear, his wife came home and found him slumped over in the foyer. At least the children were at school, Baruch HaShem.”
“That’s “thank G-d” for all the non-Jews in the room,” announced Zev.
“Yup, got it,” said Hack. “So, the autopsy showed poison? The type might give us some clues as of where to start.”
Zev rolled his eyes and turned to Josef. “Excuse my friend, he knows nothing.” Then to Hack and Kenzie: “Orthodox Jews don’t do autopsies. The Talmud, the source from which the code of Jewish law is derived, teaches to bury a body in its entirety as quickly as possible and without disfigurement. Cutting a body open would violate that law.”
“Wouldn’t the police insist on an autopsy in a homicide case, though?” asked Kenzie, sounding confused.
“We do things differently in our community,” said Josef. We have shomrim, or our own private, civilian patrols. They are usually unarmed volunteers who keep their eyes out, track down and detain suspects, and notify the police when arrests need to be made. But in more orthodox communities, they tend to take things into their own hands and may not even notify authorities because the Talmud forbids mesirah, informing on a fellow Jew to non-Jewish authorities.”
“So, you’re thinking a Jew is responsible? And that’s why outside authorities weren’t notified?” asked Hack.
“Who knows?” said Josef. “But they are aware now, thanks to some gung-ho reporter telling the world about this incident. The community is not amused, so I expect he might be the next victim. Anyway, the local police understand the Hasidim well enough to stay out of it, probably under the orders of the politicians who don’t want to incense a potential voting bloc.”
“So…that kinda leaves us with nothing,” said Kenzie, resigned.
“Not necessarily,” said Zev. “The police won’t be much use, but we should meet with this reporter and quick, before his next byline becomes his bye-bye line.”
***
Once Josef snuck back to Brooklyn, Zev, Kenzie, and Hack downloaded any information they could find on the Internet, mostly a series of articles by Alexander “Ace” Pedersen. To their dismay, Broder’s interviews never included the name of his intended national clothing distributor.
“This was my type of guy,” said Zev with a laugh as he scanned the stories. “‘OrthoDockers’ khakis? ‘BaShirt’ button-up tops? ‘Hairedi’ wigs? And this is my favorite: a ‘Miss Shpokah’ line of dresses and skirts. A bilingual punner—such a loss!”
“I don’t get it,” said Kenzie, wincing.
“In Yiddish, bashert means soulmate,” explained Zev, shaking his head with mock pity. Haredi is a sect of Hasidic Judaism. Michpocha means a network of family and close friends. If you can’t figure out ‘Orthodockers,’ you’re beyond my help.”
Reading over Zev’s shoulder, Hack interrupted his roommate’s explanation of Yiddish wordplay. “According to Broder, a franchised line of synagogues and mikvahs were also in the works. Ones catering to the tastes of the New Hasidim, replacing the stricter edicts of traditional Hasidism with more user-friendly interpretations, such as allowing followers to drive and use electricity during the Sabbath.”
“And these quotes from local Rebbes…so much venom, condemning the whole enterprise.” said Zev. “Especially in the articles Pedersen wrote after Broder’s death that document the mass shivas—those are our mourning ceremonies—that the New Hasidim in Minneapolis, Duluth and St. Cloud held in his honor. These interlopers adapted those too, reducing them to a single day instead of the traditional week.” Zev shook his head with disgust. “Guess they conflicted too much with these people’s work schedules.”
“You sound annoyed,” Kenzie remarked.
“I am a liberal man, as you know. But in my book, adapting scripture for the sake of convenience just seems wrong.”
“All hail The Book of Zev,” said Hack. “Does it contain any thoughts on the killer’s identity?”
“Not from these articles,” said Zev with a sigh. “Then again, no Hasidic Jews commented, so the articles consist strictly of theories by the faddists.” He turned from the computer to face his friends. “You realize we’re going to encounter the same issues. The wife might talk because she’s already OTD—that’s off the derech, or out of the community. But once the real Hasidim check back with the Brooklyn Rebbe and discover I’m also a deserter, they’ll shun me. They’re not going to talk to either of you either…for obvious reasons.”
“Too much facial hardware? asked Kenzie with a knowing grin.
“Not to mention, my blinding good looks,” said Hack.
Zev rolled his eyes but uncharacteristically, left the sarcasm unanswered, as if to emphasize the soberness of the situation.
“So how do we handle this?” Kenzie asked in a less flip tone. “We’re not exactly the skilled crime-fighting team you’ve led your friends to believe. We’re imposters who’ve solved one damn murder. So, Zev, what do you suggest?”
“We do what all great detectives and actors do,” said Zev. “We improvise.”
***
During their seventeen-hour drive to Minneapolis, the three kicked around various theories of the culprit’s identity and how to run the investigation to prove it.
“It’s always the spouse,” Hack half-kidded, earning him a disapproving side glance from Kenzie.
“We should definitely speak with her,” said Zev, “but doubtful she’s guilty. We don’t usually kill our own. Cynic that I am, I think we should consider everyone who had anything to gain from Broder’s death. The manufacturers, for one. Maybe they signed the deal with Broder and then figured they didn’t want to share. Same with the developers of the shuls and mikvahs that were to open. And while less obvious, the people who didn’t want to see any of this happen, and that doesn’t only include the traditional Hasidic Jews. It could be the purveyors of whatever fads were supplanted by this one, or whatever clothing purchases shoppers bypassed to grab this new line.”
Hack twisted his mouth to the left. “How are we supposed to figure out a fad interruptus?
“I think our best bet is to start with this reporter, Ace,” said Kenzie. “If we promise him exclusive coverage of the investigation and its results, maybe it would give him the impetus to share his sources.”
Once they’d checked into a small, inexpensive hotel in Brooklyn Center, they drove the seven miles to the offices of the Minneapolis Planet, an upstart publication meant to rival the more-established Star-Tribune. Adjusting his yarmulke at a jaunty angle, Zev swaggered over to the receptionist, a brunette in her thirties guarding the foyer through her clear plexiglass cubicle with a cutout to accept packages and flashed his most ingratiating smile.
“Jessica Biel, what are you doing here? I am a huge fan, and I knew you were from Minnesota, but I never expected you to be here, working, instead of at home with Mr. Timberlake and the kids!”
The receptionist blushed and giggled. “I’m afraid I’m not Ms. Biel. My name is Ava but thank you.”
“Ah, I’m sure you hear that all the time.”
“Less often than you might think. How can I help you, sir?”
“I am actually looking for your leading reporter, Mr. Pedersen. Is he available?”
“I think he’s on his way out, but I’ll see if I can reach him…your name, please?”
“Zev. Zev Einhorn. You may have heard of me…I helped crack the Grace Rendell case a few months back.”
“Oh brother,” Kenzie murmured in the background.
“You’re so exotic looking,” gushed Ava, practically swooning. “Are you NH?”
“New Hampshire?”
“No, silly, New Hasidim. I think they’re just dreamy.”
Beaming, Zev leaned in and placed an elbow against the plexiglass, attempting to strike a relaxed pose. “Maybe we could go somewhere after work and discuss…”
“Zev? The reporter?” Hack interrupted, clearly tired of his roommate’s constant, clumsy attempts at conquering the secular dating world.
Zev stiffened. “Another time, then. Could you please see if Ace is around?”
Ava readopted her professional demeanor. “Of course.” She picked up the phone and dialed.
The man who emerged from what Zev assumed to be the newsroom was an Albino man in his twenties with piercing blue eyes and a put-upon expression. “Can I help you? I’m kinda busy today.”
Zev took a few steps closer so he could speak in hushed tones to reflect the gravitas of his inquiry. “Mr. Pedersen? The Ace Pedersen? “
The reporter’s ego stroked, he deigned to nod.
“We’re here about Yossi Broder.” Zev handed him a business card bearing his name, cell phone number, and the title, “Detective for Hire.” He’d ordered them the day after the Rendell case closed.
“You got information?” Pedersen pocketed the card without even a cursory glance.
“We’re a bit worried about your safety. Your stories put a huge target on your back with the Hasidic community. We’d like to take over, help you solve the case.”
“Well, thanks for your concern, but you’re about a week too late,” said the reporter with a snicker. “Story’s over. Once the shivas ended, people started losing interest. I’ve moved on, and clearly intact.”
Zev frowned. “What could be more important than solving a murder…especially one that started a movement that generated so many of your bylines?”
“That it did, for sure.” Pedersen puffed out his chest. “Thanks to those stories, the Post called. The New York Post?? We’re, uh…chatting. And while I’m waiting for them to make an offer, I’ve moved on to the soccer story.”
“Soccer?”
“Yeah, with Ted Lasso so popular, soccer teams are so hot, they’re turning kids away and everyone is running around, wearing Roy Kent jerseys. Not to mention the new British pubs popping up all over town. There’s a story there.” Pedersen flashed a wily smile.
“Look, Ace…Broder was from my community, and they’ve asked me to look into it,” said Zev, attempting to appeal to the reporter’s better nature. “Could you please share some leads? Maybe the name of the department store chain that was going to distribute the clothing line?”
“I wish I could, man, but that’s all confidential. But look, tell you what—if you do find anything out, let me know and I’ll share it with our readers, okay? Great. Nice meeting you.” Ace said, looking past Zev while shaking his hand, and then ducking back behind locked doors into the safety of the newsroom.
“I’m staying at the Quality Inn in Brooklyn Center if you think of anything…” Zev called after him. Slightly embarrassed by coming up short, he glanced at Ava and shrugged. She lifted a finger and beckoned him to come closer. In spite of certain disapproval from Hack and Kenzie, he approached.
“He’s kind of a jerk, thinks everyone is always looking to scoop him.” she whispered.
“If only there was a way I could help my people,” said Zev, sensing an opportunity. “It would mean so much…”
Ava shot Zev a beguiling smile. “We do things a little differently at the Planet. Our publisher doesn’t believe in confidential sources within the newsroom because he does believe in the fickle nature of reporters who take off, leaving us dry. I don’t have access to Ace’s notes, but I can call up all of his contacts.”
Zev rejoined his friends, flush with phone numbers and addresses for Broder’s wife and his department store liaison, as well as a promise of a dinner date when they closed the case.
The three had assumed Target to be the clothing distributor in question—being based in Minneapolis and the country’s second largest retailer—and that Mortensen would be the construction company behind the synagogue and mikvah builds. Surprisingly, Ava’s intel revealed the names of their chief competitors: a Target copycat company called Bull’s Eye, based in nearby Minnetonka for the clothing, and the smaller Best Builds in Shakopee for the construction projects. Since the shuls and mikvahs were more of a tentative venture, they called Bull’s Eye first, and scheduled a meeting with the Director of Sales and Marketing, Andrew LaVerne, for later that afternoon.
“I sincerely wish I could be of more help to you,” said LaVerne once the three were ensconced in his closed office. “The truth is, we cancelled the project the day before Broder’s death.”
“Why, especially since it was such a local hit?” asked Kenzie.
“That’s exactly it,” said LaVerne, his chin perched on clasped palms, elbows resting on his teak desk. “Popular here, where Orthodox Judaism constitutes a little over one percent of our population and therefore exudes a kind of mystique. We conducted some focus groups in some of our more profitable locations, such as New York, California, Chicago. The product wouldn’t have sold, mostly out of respect for the Orthodox Jewish population already living there. Diminishing the sanctity of the religion by supporting a passing fad was seen as a no-go by our customers.”
“That makes sense,” said Hack. “It must have been pretty devastating for Yossi Broder, though. I’d imagine he had a lot invested in this project. And with the clothing line kaput, I’m guessing the shuls and mikvah plans would have been scrapped as well.”
LaVerne nodded. “I would imagine so. The clothing was a driving factor. From what I understand, he had invested his life savings in the materials to manufacture the garments. I was sorry to be the one to give him the bad news.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, though no one other than Zev, Hack, and Kenzie were close enough to hear. “To be honest, when I heard he collapsed, I wondered if he’d committed suicide.”
“Maybe,” said Hack. “I mean, they didn’t do an autopsy…”
“Absolutely not,” said Zev. “Hasidim see a self-inflicted death like they would see murder—a serious sin that would bring great shame upon his family. Before we left New Jersey, I called my mom, who in turn asked Josef Schechter some follow-up questions. People who knew him said Broder was devoted to his family and even though he’d left the community, he was clearly concerned about the impact that move had made on his wife and kids. I doubt he would have made it worse by killing himself.”
“I can see that,” said LaVerne. “The guy was a visionary. After most entrepreneurs take a fall, they get depressed for a while, then dust themselves off, get a loan, and try something else. He could have offloaded that fabric fairly easily. I hope you find out what happened to him; he was a good guy.”
***
Back in the car, the three compared notes.
“You believe him?” asked Kenzie. “He seemed sincere to me.”
“Agreed. My money’s on the Rebbe,” said Hack. “LaVerne said it himself, the clothing like was like a slap in the face to serious Jews.”
Zev shook his head. “I don’t think so and I’ll tell you why. By making Hasidism popular, Broder was also giving the religion some exposure, normalizing it. The Jews—and especially their leaders—might have voiced some initial outrage, but they’re savvy enough to know that how quickly fads fade, that the New Hasidism movement would die as quickly as it emerged. Meanwhile, the goyim might have grown more accepting of those they initially disdained. For the community, it would have been a win-win.”
“So, Zev, what now?” asked Kenzie.
“We go visit Malka, Broder’s wife.”
***
Malka was a pretty but devastated girl who looked like she was still in her teens, her head covered by a sheitel even though as OTD, she was no longer required to follow the Hasidic custom of a married woman hiding her hair. She and Zev sat on the couch in the living room of the Broder’s dimly lit apartment, far too small to accommodate the mother and three children still living there. Meanwhile, Hack and Kenzie had taken an Uber to the Broder’s factory to see if his employees had any thoughts on his sudden death.
“I was only willing to meet with you because you are also off the derech, so you understand,” Malka said in Yiddish. “Once you leave the community and you’re on your own, it’s so hard to assimilate.”
“I agree. I’ve been luckier than most,” Zev answered, also in Yiddish. “I know it won’t be easy with the three kinder. Did Yossi leave you enough money to get by?”
“Gurnisht. I told the factory to try and sell the fabric so we could pay this month’s rent. I have nothing.” She angrily wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
“What will you do next?” asked Zev, already convinced of her innocence. The woman was without guile, just at her wit’s end.
“Go back home, beg for forgiveness. The boys are still young, they will forget. For me, it will be harder but what can I do? I have no friends here in the secular world.”
Zev nodded gravely. “Malka, I don’t believe Yossi committed suicide. If he was poisoned, I think we’ll find the killer’s name in his schedule for the day he died.”
Malka got up, crossed the room, and removed her late husband’s cell phone from a desk drawer. “He kept his appointments in his online calendar,” she said, handing it over. “I trust you. Please find justice for him.”
Back in the car, Zev scrolled through Broder’s phone, including his calendar, texts, and notes. Then he made a few phone calls and headed back to confer with his two associates.
***
The next morning, the headline of the Star-Tribune announced the results of Zev’s efforts: “Broder, Founder of NH Movement, had Secret Partner, Reviving Clothing Line.” The article, penned by the paper’s lead lifestyle reporter Nelson Miller, named Zev as a source, and teased the names of the associate and the prospective national distributor, with a promise to release further details in an upcoming issue.
Zev checked Twitter and other social media, gratified to find he’d reinvigorated interest in the clothing line. Malka called to thank him profusely—someone had made her an overly generous offer for the fabric, just to beat Broder’s alleged partner to the punch.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Ace Pedersen’s phone call was not as friendly.
“What the hell, dude? I thought we were partners. Why did you give the scoop to Miller?”
“Well dude,” answered Zev with an edge in his voice, “I didn’t have any soccer information, so I didn’t think you’d have interest.” He experienced a moment of triumph as he calmly set down the receiver.
***
Zev was half asleep that night when he heard the sound of someone jiggling the handle of the hotel room. His breath hitched as he waited, trying to calm the racing of his pulse as the footsteps grew louder. Just before the intruder reached his bed, Zev pulled his cell phone from underneath the sheets, shining the flashlight directly into the interloper’s face and dramatically exclaiming, “Aha!” just like in the movies. As he’d suspected, it was Ace Pedersen.
Pedersen regrouped quickly, especially when he noticed Hack emerging from the closet and Kenzie from the bathroom, as she switched on the bedroom’s main overhead. Cornered, he leapt onto the bed, grabbed Zev by the chest, and held a knife tightly to his neck. “Hey, dude, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Just tell your friends to back off, give me the names of the partner and the distributor, and everyone gets to leave unhurt.”
“Sure thing, Ace,” Zev whispered in a frightened rasp. “If you admit you poisoned Broder the morning after he told you the clothing contracts were cancelled, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Fine, yeah, you figured it out. I did it. He was of no use to me anymore but with the Post hinting at a job offer, I figured I could get a few more bylines out of his death. Now the names—please speak slowly and clearly.”
“There is no partner and there is no distributor,” said Nelson Miller, who’d been filming with his cameraman from the opposite corner all along. Behind them, a police officer wielded a nine-millimeter Glock 19. “Thanks for the streamed confession, though. It will make for a great front pager. Now why don’t you step away from Zev before you have a second murder rap to defend?”
***
“Order whatever you want,” said Zev to Ava the following night as they dined at the Med Box Grill after touring Paisley Park. Prince’s former home and studio. Hack and Kenzie had offered to pay, their reward for him figuring out who poisoned Yossi Broder, and then sacrificing himself as bait for the trap they set. The small latex bandage covering the tiny cut on Zev’s neck remained his only reminder of that harrowing experience.
After the two ordered falafel wraps, Ava gazed into Zev’s eyes, glistening with reflected candlelight and undying admiration.
“You’re so smart, Zev. How did you figure it out?”
“As I told my associates, the guilty person is usually the one with the most to gain. The community wouldn’t benefit from Broder’s death, the potential distributor had already nixed the deal, and the wife was left penniless. The only one remaining was Pedersen. So, we set up a sting and waited to see if he would fall for it.”
“You’re so brave!”
“Well, you know what they say. A yid hot akht un tsvantsik protsent pakhed, tsvey protsent tsuker, un zibetsik protsent knutspe. A Jew is twenty-eight percent fear, two percent sugar, and seventy percent chutzpah.”
“All sugar, I’d say,” she said, batting her eyes suggestively. “But what if he hadn’t shown up?”
“No loss, no foul. We would have just had Miller run a retraction about the clothing line in the back of the next edition. What amazed me is that the guy fell for it—that he was surprised we streamed the whole thing. It’s exactly what we did in the Rendell case. Who would have believed it would work again? People really should do their research before breaking into someone’s hotel room.”
Ava licked her lips. “Zev, what are your plans for later this evening?”
Zev’s heart pounded, realizing he was finally going to lose his virginity—and to a shiksa in Minneapolis, yet. And thanks to Pedersen, he knew the perfect way to seal the deal: “Ever see an ex-Hasid in a Roy Kent soccer jersey, with nothing underneath?”
___________
An award-winning travel trade journalist and Realtor, Dawn M. Barclay–who writes fiction as D.M. Barr–is the author of several psychological thrillers, including Expired Listings, Murder Worth the Weight, and Saving Grace: A Psychological Thriller. Her most recent novel is Simple Tryst of Fate (romantic suspense). She also recently co-edited the upcoming anthology, Murder New York Style: Justice for All. The current president of Hudson Valley Scribes, Barclay/Barr is also a co-vice president of Sisters in Crime New York/Tri-State as well as an active member of MWA and ITW.
