Dead Sea Rising by Jerry B. Jenkins

Author:Jerry B. Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worthy Publishing
Published: 2018-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 51

Guggenheim Pavilion

Mount Sinai Hospital

Manhattan

Ben Berman found Detective Wojciechowski alone at a table for four. The detective’s trench coat and suitcoat lay draped over one of the chairs, and he had loosened his threadbare tie.

“They got kosher stuff here, Doc,” he said.

“I forced myself to eat everything offered on the plane,” Ben said, “so I’d better just have a salad.”

“You don’t gotta follow any food rules?”

“No. But I was raised on a lot of kosher food, and I like it.”

“So you’re not still Jewish?”

“Actually I’m more Jewish now than I was. I mean, I always will be ethnically, of course. But I’ve learned more about Judaism since believing in Yeshua than I ever knew before that.”

When his salad arrived, Ben asked Wojciechowski if it would embarrass him if he asked a blessing.

“You mean pray?”

Ben nodded.

“Out loud?”

“Not so anyone else can hear.”

“Either way, heck ya, I’d be embarrassed.”

“No worries,” Ben said. “I can do it silently.”

“That doesn’t help. What’m I supposed to do while you’re doin’ that?”

“I think that customarily, if a Messianic Jew is praying silently, a Gentile is required to stand on the table and dance—in any style you choose.”

The detective squinted. “Here I’m tryin’ to clear you of a crime, Berman, and you’re a laugh a minute. I don’t get it.”

“Truth is,” Ben said, “humor is my defense mechanism. Always has been. Even when I was a rebellious teenager, I tried to be funny.”

“What you got to be defensive about? You hidin’ something from me?”

“Of course I am. Don’t look so shocked. I have zero fear you’re going to clear me, and not just because I was across the Atlantic when this happened. I’m guessing by now you and your people have talked to enough friends and associates of mine to know I’d have no motive, no reason, no anything that would cause me to have anything to do with hurting my wife.”

“You’re right, Doc. So what’re you hidin’? You said it, I didn’t.”

“I’m hiding how I feel about all this.”

“See, why would you do that?” Wojciechowski said. “You gotta know I do this almost every day. I look into some crime and I start clearing everybody I can, startin’ with the people closest to the victims. And no matter how many of these blessed cop shows people watch, there’s a typical response. They’re horrified by what happened, they’re insulted we would imply they coulda had anything to do with it, and that makes ’em angry. We take a lotta heat for doin’ what we have to do, and we accept that. Only I don’t see that from you.”

“What do you see, Detective?”

“I see smart. I see earnest. I see helpful, as far as I can trust you. But I don’t see the pushback I’ve learned to expect. You’re always quick with a quip.”

“All right, I don’t mind telling you how I feel about all this. I am angry. Nobody’s ever gone after Ginny before, at least not that way.”

“What way, then?”

“Oh, when she handled the books for us, she could be tough on vendors and debtors.

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