The Golem of Hollywood Read Online Free PDF Page B

the actual vomit
ing
took place elsewhere, and that it was brought here, along with the head.”
    â€œFor decoration,” Jacob said.
    â€œPersonally, I prefer carpet,” she said. “But that’s me.”
    â€œHow’d they close the neck up?”
    â€œThree for three, Detective Lev.”
    â€œSo I didn’t miss any tiny stitches.”
    â€œNot that I can see. I’ll want a better look at it, of course.”
    â€œBlood?”
    â€œOnly what you see.”
    â€œI don’t see any,” he said.
    She shook her head.
    â€œNo drips leading from the door.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNothing outside.”
    She shook her head again.
    â€œIt happened somewhere else,” he said.
    â€œI would call that a reasonable conclusion.”
    He nodded. Looked again at the head. He wished it would shut its eyes and close its mouth. “How long’s he been here?”
    â€œHours, not days. I arrived at one-fifty a.m. A uniform handed it off to me and was quick to excuse himself.”
    â€œDid you get his name?”
    â€œChris. Something with an
H
. Hammett.”
    â€œDid he say who called it in?”
    She shook her head. “They don’t tell me that.”
    â€œAnd who else has been by since?”
    â€œJust me.”
    Jacob wasn’t a stickler for procedure, but this was rapidly going from weird to troubling.
    He checked his watch: it was close to ten. Divya Das looked trim and bright-eyed. She certainly didn’t look like a woman who’d been toiling solo over a crime scene for eight hours.
    He noticed that she was on the tall side, as well.
    â€œLet me guess,” he said. “You’re Special Projects.”
    â€œI’m whatever the Commander needs me to be,” she said.
    â€œThat’s nice of you,” he said.
    â€œI try,” she said.
    â€œThey really want to keep this quiet, don’t they?” he said.
    â€œYes, Jacob. They really do.”
    â€œMallick said I’m here because of my background,” he said. “What’s Jewish about this?”
    She said, “In here.”
    The kitchen dated from the fifties. Functionless, no appliances, cheap frames for the cabinets, counters cut from the same budget wood, warped and splintering at the edges. The suggestion of water damage, but no smell of mold. To the contrary: the room felt bone-dry.
    In the center of the longest counter was a burn mark.
    Black shapes, etched in charcoal.

    Divya Das said, “This means something to you.”
    A statement, not a question.
    He said,
“Tzedek.”
    â€œMeaning.”
    â€œMeaning,” he said, “‘justice.’”

CHAPTER FIVE
    N ot having planned to spend his day off this way, Jacob resorted to using his cell phone to photograph the scene.
    â€œI took my own before you arrived,” Divya Das said. “I’m happy to share if yours don’t come out.”
    â€œAppreciate it.”
    He photographed the head and the vomit and the lettering in the kitchen. The house’s isolation had made it seem larger from the outside; aside from the kitchen and the living space, there was a medium-sized bedroom, an adjoining bathroom with a composting toilet, and a small studio with a shelving unit and a crude wooden desk jutting from the wall, picture window overlooking the eastern slope.
    â€œAnything else?” she asked.
    â€œNo, go for it.”
    She went to her car and came back with what looked like two oversized vinyl bowling bags, one teenybopper pink and the other lime green, as though she’d raided wardrobe at Nickelodeon. She donned gloves, carefully placing the head inside a plastic bag, double-wrapping it, and transferring the bundle to the pink bag. She scooped the vomit into a snap-top container using a plastic spatula. Stomach juice had burned a matte amoeboid patch in the varnish. She nudged loose the few dried flecks using a smaller, thin-bladed spatula,