Free Invisible City by Julia Dahl

newspaper people refer to the tiny office reporters have at police headquarters.
    “Not yet. But it’s definitely a homicide.”
    “Duh.”
    Cathy laughs. “Great job, Rebekah.”
    I hang up and roll the window down to talk to Frank.
    “You got in,” he says.
    “I didn’t get much. Just her age—she’s thirty.” The offer of information surprises Frank. “Thirty, married, four kids. Born in Borough Park. That’s it.” I can give him information because nobody reads his paper.
    Frank repeats the information and I nod, indicating he’s remembered it correctly.
    “Who’s this from?” he asks.
    “The sister-in-law. Miriam.”
    “Last name?”
    “I forgot to ask.”
    Frank snickers. Forgetting to ask for the last name is a first-week mistake.
    “That’s all,” I say.
    “Okay. Thanks.”
    I roll up the window. George calls in and is told to go to a location in Queens. A city councilman’s wife was picked up for DUI. They want a shot of the car. I’m about to call myself a livery cab to go home when I see Saul coming out the back gate. He looks around, then waves at me. I get out of the car.
    “Here is my phone number,” says Saul, handing me a business card that identifies him as a detective in the NYPD. “Please call me if you have any questions. For your story. Or … anything you need.”
    He’s not staring at me with the same intensity now, which is nice. I write my phone number on a piece of notebook paper, tear it off, and give it to him.
    “Thanks,” I say. “If you hear anything about the investigation, give me a call. I don’t even think they have a cause of death yet. I guess they’re waiting on the autopsy.”
    Saul nods, but says nothing.
    “Okay,” I say. “Bye.”
    “Good-bye, Rebekah,” he says. He’s staring again. I turn and get back in George’s car to call for a livery cab.
    “Everything okay with that guy?” asks George.
    “Yeah,” I say. “He knew my parents.”
    George nods. Unlike Johnny, George doesn’t need to fill a shift with talking. I appreciate that.
    On the way home to Gowanus, sunk in the worn leather backseat of a beat-up Town Car, I check my phone and see that I have a text from Tony.
    still on for 11?
    It’s almost ten now. I even have time to shower.
    see u there … hope you’re ready for a saga
    As we merge onto the Prospect Expressway, I close my eyes and see Aron Mendelssohn. What if he killed his wife and now he’s mad enough to kill his sister for talking to me? I don’t remember ever reading about a murder in the ultra-Orthodox community, but I haven’t been in New York that long. I wonder if Saul knows more than he told me.
    Saul.
    I pull out my phone and dial my dad.
    “Hi, hon!” he says.
    “Hi, Dad.”
    “How’s life in the big city?”
    “Cold.”
    “It’s a little chilly here, too. Maria brought in a bunch of grapefruit from the tree this morning and a couple had gone bad from frost overnight.” Maria is originally from Guatemala, but she’s been in the U.S. since she was a teenager. She and my dad met at a conference of religious academics in Denver when I was about three. Maria was working as an assistant to one of the conference coordinators. They got married when I was five and had my brother, Deacon, a year later. “How’s work?”
    “Guess who I met today?”
    “Who?”
    “Saul Katz.”
    “Oh!” He sounds happy, which I suppose I should have expected. I’ve never understood my father’s relationship to my mother and her memory. He doesn’t talk about her much, but when the subject comes up, he speaks with tenderness and sympathy, like she died of cancer instead of abandoned him with a six-month-old doppelgänger. I challenged him for years, screaming and crying that she was a horrible bitch, a selfish, weak, heartless little girl who ruined both our lives. He listened, and he stroked my hair and held me when I’d worn myself out. But he never said anything more combative than, she shouldn’t have