Rabbi Gabrielle's Scandal: The Rabbi Gabrielle Series - Book 1 Read online

  Thoughts of Seth kept invading Gabby’s concentration on the eulogy. She acknowledged that nobody was a better counselor to the sick and dying than he. But at a funeral she believed herself to be his equal. Seth was florid and sometimes overly sentimental while she was terse and pragmatic. During the final rites for the deceased, he would stress the eternal life of the spirit, while she emphasized the hardcore pain of human loss. He yearned for the future; she grieved for the present. He tended to glamorize the life of the departed. Her eulogies simply traced the prominent deeds of the deceased and fit them into a family and community profile. Despite her rabbinical training, ministrations for the Malach ha Mavet, the Angel of Death, remained as much a mystery to Gabby as to her parishioners. She put in words only what she believed to be true. Death was hell; the pain of separation a terrible price to pay for the joy of loving someone.

  Chuck presented himself in the doorway and announced a phone call from one of Gabby’s closest confidants, a past-president of the congregation. “Ephraim Rothman is holding for you. He says it’s important. Shall I tell him you’re in conference and can’t be disturbed?”

  She puffed up her cheeks as though blowing a bubble, then exhaled through her front teeth. “Tell Mr. Rothman, tell him…”

  Chuck curled his lips to signal that he knew when she was improvising.

  “Tell him that the rabbi is thinking and cannot be disturbed. That should give

  him pause for thought.”

  “I most certainly hope she is,” said Chuck.

  “Or should we say praying? Sounds more impressive, don’t you think?”

  “I doubt he’d believe that.”

  “Then I’ll save that line for someone else. Put Eph through, please.”

  As soon as the call transferred, she heard Ephraim Rothman’s familiar baritone. “Good Morning, Gabby. What do you think of the news?”

  “I’m shocked. How could he have done it, Eph? And how could I have been so blind? Seth and I were close, but I apparently missed pertinent clues.”

  “He surprised us all. Since seven this morning I’ve been on the phone with the Trustees who have asked me to be in touch with you. You’ll have to fill Seth’s shoes until we can make new arrangements.”

  “Have we alternatives, Eph?” she asked rhetorically.

  “We all know you have broad shoulders.”

  “Katherine Klein’s funeral is in an hour and a half. I was reviewing her eulogy when you called.”

  “Of course…You know Katherine and I often crossed swords. She traveled in a Republican set that doesn’t invite Democrats for dinner, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, I’m calling about something else. It seems that bad news comes in bundles. Have you, by chance, read The Washington Post this morning?”

  “No, tell me what I missed.”

  “A story about Jonathan Zentner’s son, Noah. He’s been accused of raping a woman on a sailing vessel on the Chesapeake.”

  What Ephraim reported was so astounding it took Gabby an extra moment before stammering. “Does…does that pass the smoke test? Noah’s not the kind of man to rape anybody. Besides, he’s only married for a few years. And what’s this business about a sailboat? Last time I went sailing there was hardly space to stretch my legs.”

  “I’m only telling you what’s in the paper. Read it for yourself.”

  “I intend to…” she said, her mind flashing on the prominent Zentner family. Real estate people—developers of office buildings and shopping centers. But to their credit, only a portion of their vast wealth stayed at home; they contributed generously to both Jewish and communal philanthropies. The University of Chicago, Dana Farber Memorial Center in Boston, the Big Brothers, the United Jewish Communities, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem -- large gifts as though the family was buying entry tickets to heaven.

  “Rich men usually have plenty of enthusiastic bed partners and don’t need attractive women to rape,” she added as an afterthought. “Does the Post mention the victim?”

  “Someone famous, I’m afraid. You must have seen Tally Waller on television? The feisty financial commentator on CNN?”

  “You know I only watch wrestling and demolition derbies on the boob tube. But I’ve met Tally Waller at a few cocktail parties for professional women. She’s a major crusader for feminist causes.”

  "That’s what worries me,” Ephraim responded. “Crusaders think they’re born in log cabins and mangers. You can’t tell what’s bigger, their egos or their causes. For your information, Tally Waller carries a lot of weight on Wall Street.”

  “You don’t really think Noah did this, do you, Eph?”

  “My gut tells me no. But the paper reports there were several witnesses. The media will have a field day. People love to read about rich men in trouble. Hopefully the District Attorney won’t press for an indictment.”

  “Noah must have a good lawyer.”

  “Not just one -- a platoon. There’s a bevy of attorneys around the Zentner family at all times. Noah’s going to need them; he could go to jail.”

  “Can I help?” Gabby asked.

  “Noah wants Seth. His father asked me to locate him. Nobody seems to know where Seth went. I told Jonathan I wouldn’t ask you to violate a professional confidence. I promised only to ask if you knew his whereabouts.”

  “Sorry, I have no idea,” Gabby said. “I’m probably the last person Seth wants to see.”

  “I’m recommending that Noah talk with you. He’s going to need a lot of support. You know him, don’t you?”

  Seth had often spoken about tennis, Redskins games, and skiing with Noah. He and Emma had vacationed with Noah and Morgan Zentner on Nantucket and visited with them at the Zentner’s apartment in the Yemin-Moshe district of Jerusalem, where Noah stayed often while bestowing funds upon numerous Israeli charities. Seth liked to say that while many American Jews felt a pang of sympathy for the Jewish state, Noah was true ohev-Israel, a lover of Israel. “Of course I know him,” Gabby replied, “but he’s Seth’s friend, not mine. I know Morgan far better. She would come by Ohav Shalom to confer with Seth about their book.”

  “The congregation doesn’t need two scandals.”

  “Sounds as though we haven’t much choice in the matter.”

  “We must talk about the future, Gabby. How about lunch tomorrow?”

  She felt the need to speak with an officer of the congregation and there was nobody on the current Board of Directors with whom she felt closer. “Sounds good to me. My calendar is full but one has to eat, right?”

  “I’ll have my secretary, Dorothy, make a reservation at La Piccola Roma, say 12:30. I know you like Italian.”

  “My favorite. Something pleasant to look forward to.”

  While officiating at funerals, Gabby was constantly reminded that time alone, not wealth, station, or power, separates those in the pews from the corpse in the coffin. When she would stand at the pulpit with the bier before her, she would imagine herself lying face up in the casket, staring through a garland of multicolored flowers and hearing everything said. For a long moment she found herself emotionally suspended in space between the pulpit and lush floral arrangement surrounding Katherine Klein’s coffin, a world half here and half in the timeless realm of the dead.

  Most of Katherine Klein’s mourners were unknown to her, though she recognized Emma Greer sitting in the fourth row on the opposite side of the sanctuary, absorbed in her thoughts. To present herself at the synagogue while news of her husband had begun circulating through the Jewish community spoke to Gabby of inner strength. She wanted to leave the pulpit and plant a sympathetic kiss upon Emma’s cheek. But professional conduct ruled that out. Whatever public humiliation Seth had brought to his wife, these sacred moments of farewell belonged exclusively to Katherine Klein.

  After the conclusion of the ceremony at Ohav Shalom, several dozen mourners traveled in a funeral cortege through the city and over the American Legion Bridge spanning the Potomac River to the King Davi
d Cemetery, through late-morning traffic, stopping traffic where necessary. In order to return to Ohav Shalom immediately after the interment, Gabby had declined to ride in the family limousine, driving her own silver Saab sedan.

  Northern Virginia skies were overcast. A previous shower had dampened the cemetery and the air was unseasonably chilled. Divine raindrops were to her the perfect metaphor for human tears. She could remember no burial that had taken place in warm sunshine. Cemetery employees ushered the mourners to the Klein family gravesite, with vacant plots pre-selected for Katherine’s husband, Joseph, a syndicated political analyst for The Los Angeles Times, and their three children, along with their eventual spouses and grandchildren.

  Emma stood on the periphery of the grief-stricken, neither with nor separate from them, occasionally nodding muted greetings to passersby. In a social gathering, this isolation would have made others uncomfortable, but not at a funeral.

  Once the Klein family and close friends circled the open grave, Gabby recited a simple utterance from Job: “Adonai natan, Adonai lacach, yehe shem Adonai m’vorach, The Lord gives and now the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” She then stepped toward the gravediggers for a shovel, reminding the mourners that human beings were the only mammals that prevented their dead from directly entering the food chain. With an athletic movement she drove the blade into a pile of freshly turned dirt, then handed the heavy shovel to Katherine’s tearful husband, who wailed aloud. Clumps of dirt peppered the wood coffin below with a short series of loud thuds. One by one other mourners stepped forward to follow his example.

  Gabby eventually gathered the family at the head of the grave, placed her arms around Joseph Klein and his eldest daughter and lead them in the recitation of the communal Kaddish for the dead.

  Burial rites concluded abruptly, mirroring the disjunction between life and death. No additional Hebrew blessings and no supplementary eulogies. In every funeral there comes a point where nothing more needs to be said or done. From that moment, the process of separation begins.

  In clusters, mourners walked slowly along a gravel path toward their vehicles. A damp wind punished them with wet residue from a distant shower. Gabby remained behind, standing on the lip of the grave and thinking of Katherine Klein’s journey into the world of sleep. She had withheld her own emotion from the mourners, but once alone, sadness welled up inside.

  “Hello, Gabby…” a voice surprised her, for she had believed herself to be alone. She turned to watch Emma Greer approach, her hand outstretched. Gabby had eaten many Shabbat meals in the Greer home and once stayed there for a week while her condominium was being painted. Emma never exhibited signs of jealousy about the professional closeness she shared with her husband. A devoted feminist, she appeared enthusiastic when Seth had selected a female colleague.

  “You’re a very courageous woman,” Gabby said, taking the gloved hand and drawing Emma into an embrace. Emma was wearing dark glasses, behind which Gabby believed to be eyes sore from crying. “I can’t tell you how sad I feel for you. It’s hard to imagine anything worse.”

  Emma pointed to Katherine’s grave and said in a voice more composed than Gabby expected. “Not so. I could be in that coffin, which would be infinitely worse. I’m still here, you know – the same ornery woman I’ve always been. My problems with Seth have been brewing for years. He must have talked to you about us.”

  Gabby nodded, hoping Emma wouldn’t ask exactly how much she knew about their difficulties.

  “Could we walk a little?” Emma asked. “It’s cold and I need to get my blood circulating. Besides, Katherine’s grave makes me cry. Despite the fact that she was a staunch Republican, we were very close. She was a faithful confidant, though God knows she had her own troubles. I think we became kinfolk in pain. Suffering brings odd people together, you know.”

  Gabby took the lead, turning Emma with a hand on her arm as they proceeded along a path between weathered gravestones with nearly illegible Hebrew lettering. A few antique stones leaned forward, breaking symmetry with those standing upright.

  Gabby folded her arm into Emma’s as they walked, their shoulders touching. Nothing was said until they entered a new section of the cemetery where Gabby said, “I know you heard all those nasty rumors about Seth and me. Thanks for not circulating them further. I won’t deny that he and I had many opportunities. But despite our closeness he never suggested we go to bed together. He never laid a finger on me. Never intimated or led me on. Never tried to compromise me with alcohol. Nothing was ever said in my presence that was crude or suggestive and, as far as I can remember, he never even told an off-color joke in my presence, though I knew through others than he possessed quite a repertoire of dirty gags.”

  Emma slowed the pace and canted her torso to look at Gabby, “I won’t deny that the thought crossed my mine. But I never gave it much credence.”

  “I was afraid you might come to the wrong conclusion.”

  “Of course, I heard what people were saying, but I knew my husband. He’s a damn fool who has now brought shame to all of us. But he wouldn’t wreck your career. He recognized your talents and, if anything, was a bit envious. He admired your directness and felt he had to embellish everything, make jokes about things he didn’t understand. He often told me it took him ten words to say what you managed in three. And when he talked about retirement, he wanted you to be his successor. That’s about the only thing he didn’t botch.”

  Gabby squired Emma along a flagstone path bordering fresh gravesites without stone markers. “I hope you’ll remain close to Ohav Shalom, Emma.”

  “I doubt it. People will look to me for explanations I don’t want to provide. What can you say about a failed marriage? We both made mistakes.”

  “What’s a congregation for if you can’t go there in trouble?”

  “Don’t patronize me, friend. Rabbis and rebbitsins don’t go to their congregations for help.”

  “Were things that bad between you two? Your marriage didn’t look any worse than many I see.”

  Emma paused again before declaring, “Seth wasn’t lustful. And, as far as I know, he wasn’t sexually frustrated. Experts say that the first thing to go in a bad marriage is sex. We must have been an extraordinary couple because our marriage failed in many, many ways, but not in bed. We scrapped like dogs and cats, but never at bedtime.”

  Gabby exhaled a gusty breath, humbled by Emma’s forthrightness. She thought of satisfying her curiosity by asking if Morgan Zentner was Seth’s paramour but rejected the idea.

  They turned before a wall of granite stones and silently headed back in the direction of their cars.

  Near her Toyota, Emma pivoted, forcing Gabby to stop in her tracks. “You’re one of the few I can speak to about Seth.”

  Gabby answered. “Your confidence means a lot to me. That damn fool left you alone and me wrestling with a congregation bucking like a wild bronco. I want him back with you, Emma. And I want him back on the pulpit with me.”

  Emma almost snickered as she pulled open driver’s door. “Noble, noble. You rabbis are all dreamers. Seth lived in the clouds and soiled the earth beneath his feet. We’re not going back to the good-old days, Gabby. The good old times weren’t what they’re cracked up to be.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  In the New York studio of MSNBC’s Your Money, Tally Waller felt uneasy about her performance before TV cameras where the talk-show host, C. Claude McMillan, asked questions originally intended for fellow-panelist, Benjamin LeVell, about three technology companies with a sliding record of sales. LeVell failed to show up at the studio because an ambulance, speeding to assist another accident, rammed his taxi. No injuries, but the police wouldn’t release the witnesses. McMillian’s queries called for improvising on her part, a bit more than she was comfortable with. Perspiration glistened on her brow and, unable to wipe it off while on camera, she wondered if the viewers with high-definition TV would notice. His praise for her performance after Your Money left
the air reflected, she believed, his good manners more than his enthusiasm.

  A quick glance at her watch brought to mind a phone conversation she had had with an Assistant District Attorney in Baltimore asking to meet at the studio in New York. He apologized for the inconvenience, but this was the only evening he and his colleague were free to travel from Baltimore.

  Outside the dressing room she shared with other panelist, a man and woman were waiting. Sylvia Junqueira introduced herself and Sidney Jefferson Hines as the designated prosecuting attorneys should the State of Maryland indict Noah Zentner. Tally Waller took note of Junqueira’s gold earrings and two necklaces, one hanging inside her blouse and the other outside, along with multiple golden bracelets on both wrists. There were three rings on her right hand and a modest-sized engagement diamond on the left. “Sorry about disturbing you at work,” Junqueira opened, “but we wanted to see you in your own environment. Of course, we’ve seen you on TV, but that’s not quite the same thing, if you know what I mean.”

  Once inside the dressing room, Tally stripped bone-rimmed designer glasses from a nose that was red where the frame pads irritated her skin. Light lipstick on her lips and professionally mascaraed eyes with artificial eyelashes contrasted with the flat hue of her stage makeup. Her gray suit was tailored with simple elegance and her high starched collar almost touched the lobes of her ears. “I’m impressed by your promptness,“ she said while arranging barstools entertainers use to sit before a wide makeup mirror. “You’ll have to excuse this mess; folks are always in a rush around here and seldom clean up after themselves. Good of you to come all the way from Baltimore.”

  “Not to worry,” Sidney Hines’ smile was a combination of congeniality and affectation. “We needed to escape for a few hours. Since you filed charges against Zentner, the press hounds us. Women’s rights organizations clog our e-mail with demands to prosecute. Petitions clutter our desks. We’re learning the hard way that notoriety isn’t as desirable as some think.”