The Mourning Sexton (33 page)

Just the way we decided we would.

EPILOGUE

T
he twenty-eighth of Kislev fell on a Saturday that year, which partly explained why the main sanctuary of Anshe Emes was nearly full for the morning
Shabbos
service. But many in the crowd were not members of the congregation, and many of those were not even Jewish, including Channel Five's Michelle Warner, who was standing along the side wall, and
Post-Dispatch
columnist Mitch Ryan, who was seated in the back row with a steno pad open on his lap. Michelle and Mitch and the other visitors had come to Anshe Emes on this chilly December morning because the twenty-eighth day of Kislev was also the fourth
yahrzeit
of Judith Shifrin.

Much has changed since this day last year, when barely a
minyan
gathered in the small shul down the hall. The scandal of
In re Turbo XL Tire Litigation
, which the media christened TurboGate, stayed on the front page and in the evening news throughout the summer. And with good reason. TurboGate is now the largest corruption-of-justice scandal in the nation's history. Criminal fines and restitution judgments levied against Peterson Tire, its various top executives, and the Emerson, Burke & McGee law firm exceed seven hundred million dollars. To that sum one must add at least a billion dollars in damage claims in pending lawsuits filed by a who's who of the nation's class-action lawyers.

Op-ed pundits and editorial cartoonists have had a field day with Marvin Guttner and Brendan McCormick and the top brass at Peterson Tire. So have the newsweeklies. Guttner appeared on the cover of
Newsweek
. Other key players, including Judith Shifrin, made it onto the covers of
Time
and
U.S. News
. Perhaps the most memorable was McCormick's computer-altered cover appearance on
Forbes
—a black patch over one eye, a skull-and-crossbones on his black robe, a cutlass in one hand, a fistful of cash in the other, under the caption: “The Blackbeard of American Justice.”

Marvin Guttner did indeed seek the advantage of FIFO accounting by being the first of the defendants to plead guilty. Although his prison sentence was the shortest, it could hardly be called short. District Judge Maxwell Harper heard Guttner's guilty plea and lived up to his nickname at the sentencing. Thanks to Maximum Max, Guttner won't be able to savor his beloved chocolate cheesecake at the Saint Louis Club until after he turns eighty—and even then he'll need to cadge money to pay for it, since the government seized all of his personal assets, including the hidden ones McCormick alluded to during Hirsch's final appearance before him. That Guttner is serving out his term in the same correctional facility that once housed his nemesis is particularly galling, especially whenever he feels that sudden blast of cold water from the second showerhead on the left.

Maximum Max also presided at the trials of two of the top three officials of Peterson Tire. If either of them lives to be one hundred, he'll enjoy his centennial birthday cake in the prison dining hall. Perhaps Guttner takes some comfort in that. And perhaps he feels some remorse over the fate of his two loyal lieutenants at the law firm, both in their thirties, both married, both fathers of small children. Neither will be eligible for parole until after his youngest child graduates from high school.

Guttner's most important client may soon vanish as well. Peterson Tire staggered through the summer months and into the fall buffeted by grand jury subpoenas and besieged by plaintiffs' lawyers. By September, its stock was trading in numbers normally associated with drill bit sizes. Two weeks before Halloween, it sought refuge under Chapter Eleven of the bankruptcy code. Few expect it to emerge.

Had Brendan McCormick survived Hirsch's final appearance before him, he could have been the first federal judge in American history to receive the death penalty. Although his strangulation of Judith Shifrin might not have qualified as first degree, his murder-for-hire of Patrick Markman most surely would have, as the prosecutors learned in October when a death row convict named Albert Fondella cut his deal with the State of Missouri. In exchange for getting his death sentence commuted to life in prison, Fondella gave detailed sworn testimony about the eight-thousand-dollar fee McCormick paid him to make sure Markman died in an “accident.”

The two FBI special agents who burst into McCormick's chambers that last morning spared the judge the final indignity of a lethal injection on a prison gurney. They also spared him the pain and suffering he'd inflicted upon Judith Shifrin. According to the audiotape, the agents fired a total of four bullets in 1.3 seconds. Although the three that pierced his upper torso would not have been instantaneously fatal, the one that entered through his right eyeball and ricocheted inside his cranium would have turned out the lights pretty fast.

And as with most major criminal investigations, there were a few loose ends, including one the investigators will never connect to their investigation. In late May, about two weeks after McCormick's death, the Coast Guard fished a bloated floater out of the Mississippi River about ten miles south of St. Louis. The decomposed corpse appeared to be the remains of a burly Caucasian male in his late thirties. The medical examiner determined that the cause of death was acute spinal cord damage resulting from the fracture of the C-2 vertebra, apparently caused by a severe blow to the back of the neck. Any hope of fingerprint identification had been stymied by the catfish and turtles of the Mississippi River, who'd nibbled off all flesh on both hands, along with the dead man's tongue, eyeballs, and genitalia. The morgue eventually disposed of the remains as unclaimed and unidentified.

In the main sanctuary of Anshe Emes, the service is nearing its end. Rabbi Zev Saltzman moves up to the podium and waits for the hum of Hebrew prayers to fade.

“This is the time in our service,” he announces, more for the benefit of the visitors than the regulars, “when we pause to remember those of our loved ones who have died this year, and those who died at this time in years gone by.”

He gazes out at the audience, at the familiar
Shabbos
faces and at all the new ones.

“Before I ask our mourners to rise, I want to extend an invitation to all gathered here today to join us down in the social hall after the service for a delicious
kiddush
luncheon presented by a friend of our congregation, Mr. Seymour Rosenbloom. He offers the luncheon in memory of an extraordinary young woman who died on this day four years ago.”

The rabbi smiles down at Rosenbloom, who is seated in his wheelchair in the center aisle next to the sixth row of seats. Those who haven't seen Rosenbloom for a few months note that he has lost more weight. He doesn't seem to sit up quite as straight as before, and the bags under his eyes look darker. Those seated closest to him can see the tremor in his hands. But even from afar, his broad grin is as hearty as ever, and his eyes sparkle with gusto.

“Will the mourners please rise.”

The rabbi waits as many in the audience get to their feet.

“I now call to the
bima,
” he says, “a special member of Anshe Emes. Although he prefers the humbler title ‘sexton,' to those of us who make up the weekday
minyan
each morning, he is our
gabbai.
We now call upon our morning
gabbai
to lead us in the mourner's
Kaddish
.”

The
gabbai
is seated next to the aisle, with Rosenbloom on his right and Dulcie's son, Ben, on his left. As Ben stands and helps him to his feet and hands him his cane, the rabbi begins reading the names of the dead.

“. . . Saul Birnbaum . . . Eugene Chosid . . .”

The
gabbai
makes his way slowly up the aisle. The bullet had punched through his lower chest, splintering two ribs and deflecting at an angle through his abdomen before lodging in his spinal canal between two lumbar vertebrae. He spent eight hours on the operating table the first time as the surgeons stitched his insides back together and, after much deliberation, decided that the risks of removing the bullet outweighed the risks of leaving it there. After another operation, two more weeks in intensive care, and several months of rehabilitative therapy, the
gabbai
can walk with a cane, his right leg in a brace.

One day at a time,
his physical therapist always reminds him.

“. . . Stanley Fink . . . Samuel Gilberg . . .”

He takes the three steps up to the
bima,
one by one, carefully.

“Get up!” a stern voice hisses.

The
gabbai
turns toward the familiar voice. Mr. Kantor is standing in the first row and glaring down at Abe Shifrin, who had been gazing ahead with a vacant smile. Shifrin looks up at Mr. Kantor with a puzzled expression.

“Now, Abe! Up.”

Shifrin gets to his feet.

“. . . Shirlee Kahn . . . Mikhail Lenga . . . Zvi Naiman . . .”

The
gabbai
is at the podium now. He looks around the sanctuary. Dulcie and his daughter, Lauren, stand side by side in the row he just left. Lauren leans against Dulcie and uses a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Dulcie strokes Lauren's hair as she smiles at Hirsch. Scattered through the sanctuary are other women he knows, including several paralegals and secretaries from his office. Over near the left side stands Carrie Markman, frail but determined.

Down in the second row are the five remaining members of the
Alter Kocker
Brigade, all staring up at him with genial expressions. The sixth, Saul Birnbaum, passed away just last month. Along the side wall on the right stands Russ Jefferson, dressed in a dark suit and gray fedora, arms clasped in front of his hips. Seated near him are several of the FBI agents and assistant U.S. attorneys who worked on tFhe TurboGate prosecutions. Standing in the back row like some massive sentry is Jumbo Redding. He'd driven from Tennessee last night, but only after extracting a promise that they'd all go out for sushi tonight. Dulcie had made reservations at Nobu for a party that would also include Lauren, Ben, Rosenbloom, Carrie Markman, and Russ Jefferson and his wife.

“. . . Harold Rosenthal . . . Peggy Strauss . . .”

The rabbi had told him before the start of the service that he should take this occasion to say something about Judith. And now, as he listens to the names of the dead, he thinks again of what he could say to those gathered in the sanctuary, to those who've known her, to those who've only read about her, and to the man in the front row who no longer remembers her.

He'd given eulogies in the past—dozens during his glory years. He knew the language and the rhythms of tribute. He knew how to touch hearts and moisten eyes, how to make the audience sigh with grief and smile through tears. He knew the drill. It was, after all, not so different from a closing argument to a jury.

“. . . and finally—”

The rabbi pauses.

“Judith Lynn Shifrin.”

The rabbi nods toward him and steps back from the podium.

The
gabbai
looks out at the crowd.

Yes, he thought, there were things he could tell them about Judith, about her determination and her efforts to stop an injustice, about her faith and her sorrow, her courage and her solitude. They were all true, these things he could say. But the words were eulogy words, dulled by overuse.

He lowers his gaze to Rosenbloom, and their eyes meet. They stare at one another in the silence of the sanctuary.

After a moment, Sancho gives him a wink.

And that is when the
gabbai
realizes that the best words today are the same words his people have recited on this occasion for centuries—in the Sinai desert and in the Spain of Maimonedes, in the Polish shtetls and in the Park Avenue coops, in the Prague ghetto of the fourteenth century and the Warsaw ghetto of the twentieth, in the Jerusalem of Herod and the Florence of the Medicis, in the valleys and on the mountaintops and in river cities just like this one in the heart of America.

And so he says, “Please join me in the words of the
Kaddish
in memory of all of these good people.”

And they did.

GLOSSARY OF YIDDISH AND HEBREW TERMS

Akediah
Hebrew word for “binding”; refers to the scene in the Bible where Abraham binds his son Isaac to the altar to sacrifice him. The
Akediah
is the point in the morning service when the
minyan
remembers Abraham's supreme act of self-sacrifice in obedience to God's will.

Aleinu
A prayer recited near the end of every Jewish service

aleya ha'sholem
“May she rest in peace.”

Alter Kocker
an old man

bar mitzvah
The coming-of-age ceremony marking the fact that a boy has reached the age of thirteen and is thus obligated to observe the commandments.

bima
the pulpit

bobba
grandmother

boychik
young boy (term of endearment)

bupkes
something of no value (literally: beans)

chumash
The compilation of the first five books of the Bible and readings from the prophets, organized in the order of the weekly Torah portions

gabbai
the sheriff of the congregation who chooses who is to be called up to the
bima
to receive an
aliyah
(the honor of reciting a blessing over the Torah) or to read from the Torah; a position of great honor and respect within the congregation

goniff
thief

goyishe kup
used to indicate a person who is not smart or shrewd: goyishe=non-Jewish; kop=head. Opposite is a
yiddishe kup
.

Kaddish
The prayer associated with mourning and recited by the mourner for eleven months after the death of a loved one and then on each anniversary (
yahrzeit
) thereafter

Kiddish
A prayer recited over wine at the beginning of a festive meal on the Shabbat or other holiday; shorthand for the luncheon held in the synagogue after Shabbat services

kippah
skullcap, yarmulke

latkes
traditional potato pancakes served on Chanukah

mensch
term of respect for a special person (“He's a real mensch.”)

minyan
quorum (generally ten men) required for praying as a “community,” or for the public reading of the Torah, or for reciting the Kaddish or other ritual matters of special holiness

mitzvah
a good deed (literally, a command of God)

oy
an expression of dismay, astonishment, concern, or pain

pushke
little charity box for coins

putz
a jerk (slang word for penis)

schlemiel
an inept person, a fumbler

schmendrick
a stupid person

schmuck
derisive term for a man (slang word for penis)

schvartza
a black person

Shabbas
Sabbath (also, Shabbat)

shammas
the sexton or beadle of the congregation, the person who takes care of the physical plant

shanda
shame or disgrace

Shemoneh Esrei
A prayer that is at the center of every Jewish service and consists of nineteen blessings

shiva
mourning period of seven days observed by family and friends of the deceased

shtupping
sexual intercourse

siddur
Jewish prayer book

tallit
a prayer shawl worn during morning services with tzitzit (long fringes) attached to each of the four corners

tefillin
phylacteries, i.e., leather pouches containing scrolls with passages of scripture, used to fulfill the commandment to bind the commandments to your hands and between your eyes

tsouris
trouble, suffering

yahrzeit
the anniversary of the death of a close relative

zayde
grandfather