The Bar Mitzvah Murder by Lee Harris Page A

“Motives.” I thought about it. What would Judy Silverman’s motive be, since she’s the only suspect who’s disappeared? I can’t think of one. What about Dr. Leonard Gross? I closed my eyes and tried to imagine this very nice man killing his cousin because of some bequest. It was just silly. “How about Hal?” I said brightly, referring to one of our closest friends, Mel’s husband.
    â€œHal didn’t do it.” Jack sounded about as final as he ever did, and a little annoyed besides.
    â€œWell, that’s how I feel about the others. You know what? We need to see the will. There may be all kinds of interesting things in it. Like maybe there’s a bequest for Gabe’s first wife and it turns out she’s running out of money.”
    â€œCould be. Ex-wives are good suspects.”
    I smiled. “You think it’s possible he left her something in his will?”
    â€œNot out of the question. It may have been part of the divorce settlement.”
    â€œIt’s too complicated. I’ll never figure this one out.” Jack patted my thigh. “Whoever’s behind this didn’t want him dead, Chris. At least not right away. If they had, they’d’ve killed him at the party. They had the chance. Instead of giving him something to knock him out, they could’ve given him something lethal. But they didn’t. So what does that tell you?”
    â€œThey wanted something from him. The question is what.”
    â€œIt sure wasn’t the money he had in his wallet.”
    â€œMaybe they wanted to know something he knew, like where something was hidden, like a key to a vault. Or maybe they wanted the combination to a safe.”
    â€œTwo good ideas. See, what I’ve been trying to figure out is whether they intended to kill him from the start or he didn’t cooperate and they killed him in anger.”
    I thought about it. If he had a key on the key ring in his pocket and they took it from him, they’d have to hold him till the key was used, or he would see to it that they were picked up. The same thing would hold if it was a combination or a computer password. But once the safe was robbed, why should they hold him or kill him? They could phone the information to an accomplice in New York or some other place, and as soon as the safe was emptied they could let him go.
    â€œThey didn’t have to kill him if all they wanted was that kind of information,” I said. “You told me he’d been beaten. That’s the kind of thing you do when a victim doesn’t cooperate. I don’t think they meant to kill him, Jack. They wanted something from him, they didn’t get it, they tried to beat it out of him, and he died.”
    â€œI think I go along with that. I’m not sure Joshua does. He thinks they worked out this elaborate kidnapping for a couple of reasons. They couldn’t get him alone long enough to kill him. They didn’t want to use a gun because they’re loud. They wanted a quiet killing. Gabe was always surrounded by the family, because they were going from one place to another together. At the Sunday party, the tables and chairs were in one place, the band was in another, the dance area was somewhere else. Joshua thinks Gabe left the crowd to tell the headwaiter it was time for the cake.”
    â€œBut he never got to the headwaiter and someone was waiting for him.”
    â€œSomething like that. They just needed him alone for half a minute.”
    â€œIf all they wanted was to kill him, why does Joshua think he was beaten up? And why did they wait twenty-four hours to dump his body?”
    â€œAbout the beating up, Joshua thinks someone with a lot of hate killed him, or ordered him killed. That accounts for the beating. Why they waited so long, well, maybe they just wanted him to die slowly. Maybe they drove around looking for a good place to dump him and couldn’t find one right