By A Spider's Thread

A soft chime sounded, indicating that the front door had opened, and Mark Rubin entered the store. He did not seem impressed by the sight of Tess in mink.

"You find Mrs. Gordon's lynx?" the salesman asked.

"Yes, Paul, I've handled the 'emergency' as I've handled it every year for the past decade when Mrs. Gordon has scheduled one of these trips and forgotten to call ahead to get her coats out of storage. This year it's a Scandinavian cruise."

"She's such a-" Conscientious Paul remembered he was standing next to a potential customer. "She's such a sweet lady, but a little forgetful."

"Well, that's why we have our own storage vault. I can always get a coat for a valued customer, as long as it's not on the Sabbath."

"You have your own storage facility?" Tess was trying to cover up the awkwardness she felt, as if she had been caught at something.

Mark nodded curtly. "The other locals use a warehouse in northern Virginia. I'll take over from here, Paul. Miss Monaghan came to see me."

"Certainly, Mr. Rubin." The salesman disappeared with the practiced discretion of a man who knows how to make himself invisible.

"He's good at his job," Tess said as soon as Paul was out of earshot.

"He's excellent. So why were you wasting his time? Not to mention bringing my personal business into my workplace. I hope you don't squander your own time as carelessly as you used my salesman's. After all, I'm paying for it."

"I was curious about your business," she said, taking off the coat and returning it to the rack. Rubin reached out and gave it a few smoothing strokes, as if Tess had defiled the mink in some way. "Right now I'm curious about everything you do. Somewhere in your life, there's got to be a clue, a hint, as to where your wife might have gone, and why. For example, is there anyone else in your life who disappeared about the same time?"

"What do you mean?"

"An employee, for example. Someone from your street. The guy who delivers your newspaper. Natalie had to have some help. She only had a few thousand dollars, right? At least that's what I just learned from the Baltimore County cops. You didn't trust your wife with cash, so she had to figure out a way to sneak it. But she was scared enough to pay most of it back, with a check written by a manicurist who happens to be her oldest friend. But for some reason you didn't think to tell me about your household accounting or to give me Lana Wishnia's name as a lead. I had to pay Natalie's mother a hundred dollars just to find out she existed." Mark Rubin looked around the store. "Let's go back to my office. I'd prefer not to have this conversation out here, on the floor, where customers come and go."

His office was utilitarian, a windowless room with a messy desk stacked with catalogs. The only personal touch was a bright red shelf filled with photographs of his children and his wife. This long mantel was mounted to the wall behind Rubin's desk, almost like a credenza, so Tess ended up facing all those photos when she sat opposite him. The photos made her feel guilty, as if the children's faces were pleading with her to bring them back to a place where they had smiled and laughed as they did in these photos. Their mother, however, was somber-lips together, eyes downcast. But there was a kind of calculation in the look, too, a sense that Natalie Rubin was striking a pose, her eyes sliding away from the camera's lens lest it glimpse her secrets.

"I never knew this little shopping center existed," Tess said, making conversation. "Have you always been here?"

"My father opened the store in this location about thirty-five years ago. Like most merchants, he started off downtown, but he was quick to figure out that the customers were moving farther and farther away and that the stores needed to follow them. He was already making plans to relocate when the riots came. But we always lived out here in Pikesville. We had to."

"Why? It's not like those old real-estate covenants barring Jews were still in effect in the other neighborhoods."

"I have to live within walking distance of my shul," he said, his voice patient, yet a little patronizing. It was becoming a familiar tone to Tess. Had he spoken to his wife with these same inflections? That would explain a lot.

"Right So where's the other son?"

"What do you mean? Have you learned something about Isaac and Efraim?"

"No, no-the store is called Robbins amp; Sons. I figured out that Robbins is simply Rubin, anglicized. But you're the only son here. Did you have a brother?"

"Oh." He shrugged. "The name goes back to my father. The other furriers in town-Mano Swartz, Miller Brothers-had such impressive-sounding names. And he had a partner in the begi

Tess completed his thought in her head: If his boys were found, if they were okay. Apparently, Mark Rubin had his own reservations about tempting the evil eye.

"Did you feel obligated to go into the family business?"

"Not at all. I considered it a privilege. My father made it clear, early on, that our partnership was to be a two-way street-I could say no, but he could, too. If I wanted to do something else, there would be no hard feelings. And if he decided I didn't have the brains to run it, then no hard feelings on my part either. Some people found my father rather… rigid. Strict, at least in business."

"What do you mean, 'at least in business'?"

"He wasn't strict about religion at all. My father considered himself Orthodox, but he did things I would never do. Dance with a woman who was not his wife, for example. Eat in nonkosher restaurants. Such looseness was more common before the Conservative movement gathered strength. I decided I wanted to follow a more traditional Orthodox lifestyle. It's all relative. There are Hasidim who consider me unspeakably liberal."

"Was there a reason you embraced a stricter version of the religion than the one practiced in your family?" The question was asked out of nothing more than sheer curiosity. One of the perks of being a private detective was that one was allowed to pursue topics considered outrageously rude in everyday life. Tess could ask people about their income, their sex lives, and even about religion, the most forbidden topic of all in some ways.

"Reasons, I'd say. But they all fall under the general heading of growing up, moving on. My father died ten years ago. Heart attack. Died, in fact, carrying an armload of furs into the vault. The last thing he said to me was, 'Mark-grab the coats.' He didn't want them to fall. He was dead when he hit the ground."

"This was just before you married, right?"

The shrug again. Rubin was an eloquent shrugger. "My father was fifty-five when I was born, yet he outlived my mother, who was twenty years younger and died before my fifth birthday. He also outlived my stepmother, who died when I was a teenager. I was in no hurry to marry, and my father seemed to enjoy my companionship. Besides, I was waiting for a love match, a true one."

"I guess a good-looking Orthodox furrier doesn't want for prospective wives."

He stroked his beard, amused. "How nice to know you think I'm good-looking."

Tess pretended to be flustered, but the compliment had been calculated. She had wanted to soften him up before she began asking the ruder questions. "So… about Lana Wishnia."

"I didn't know her." Said quickly, as if that would make the subject go away. "And the police told me she was Natalie's manicurist. You say they were friends, but this is the first I've heard of that."

"I'm more curious about the check Lana wrote to Natalie-and your little bookkeeping system, which made it necessary. Why didn't Natalie have money of her own?"