A Question of Allegiance: Shmuley Myers Novels, #2

By Sol Sharp

Detective Shmuley Myers celebration of Purim, the Feast of Esther, turns into a murder investigation – in the Rabbi's office! Immediately followed by the disappearance of the synagogue's sexton. Shmuley's trail leads to a massive explosion, community secrets uncovered, and a race to find the missing – and the murderer – before Shmuley's secret life implodes.

Set in theocratic America where citizenship begins at conception, Shmuley and his wife Chaya also help women seeking freedom from reproductive tyranny to find safe places or new identities. Complicating matters is Shmuley's partner, Jethro Waters, whose job with the Preborn Investigation Bureau is finding and arresting fetuciders and anyone helping women or gay people escape the country.

A Question of Allegiance is the second novel in the Shmuley Myers series. Check out A Day at the Zoo as well!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sol Sharp
• Release date: Nov 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9780972601733

Book preview

Purim Night

Wednesday (3/16)

Fast

Donuts. The curse of cops the fashtunkeneh—awful—things were. Chocolate. Chocolate and some fruit thing. Jam. And maybe a little vanilla I smelled, too. Chocolate was expensive so much almost no one had it to give away.

My mouth watered. I glanced over mine left shoulder behind me what to see who was there. A crowd of hungry cops is what was there. Lieutenant Dawson was by them in the middle, glaring at two uniformed officers who maybe should have been bloodhounds. Or maybe Intel.

I got up, then in mine chair sat back down. Today was Ta’anis Ester—the Fast of Queen Esther. So, no breakfast. Also, not at all eating today until the Purim holiday celebration tonight. Cake, cookies, and booze for me awaited. And no donuts. Chaya, mine wife five years to me married, being pregnant, today could eat anything. Jealousy is for between a couple a bad thing to feel.

At the Austin Police Department, I’ve been a detective for three years. Haredi—what we call ourselves, and what others call ultra-Orthodox, usually didn’t work outside of cities with big Jewish communities. But when they a detective badge waved at me, I took it, even if our little shtetl was smaller than even Skokie was.

Hey, Myers, want a donut? Dawson brought them in from one of your bakeries, for the squad.

He meant a kosher one. I wasn’t enough hungry that into sin it would tempt me. Dawson above his head waved one. Almost I could see others getting ready to jump up for it. He over six feet stood, big and muscled and like a fallen oak leaf black. He polished his kopf like a radar dome instead of growing out hair to cut.

Thanks, but I can’t today, I said, standing up again. I gift it to you. At him I made a little bow.

He snorted and back to the group of cops turned. What am I bid for Shmuley’s donut?

A funny man. I sat back down. Just another slow afternoon in the APD homicide squad room.

Mine desk, what I named Shmendrick, meaning idiot, had electronic clutter on its top windows and objects. And that was on the screen part only. On the desk itself was the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, in print.

It I opened first, and over to the classified section went. Mine eyes went to one tiny ad, just a line. Stocker Needed. A phone number, and an extension. A message for me, from Upline. A when and where, and to where, like a secret taxi ride.

Upline helped women escape the Preborn Investigation Bureau, PIBniks, or GodForce as most called them. Women who were by accident pregnant and needed the whole United States to escape to get an abortion. Or to help rescue helpers who the PIB were looking for. I, from before even I moved to Austin, worked for them, moving people. Hiding people. Like the enslaved people from the South up North being smuggled. Not something mine police department would like for a homicide sergeant to be doing, for sure.

I closed the paper and into a drawer put it. The stack of folders next I looked at. Audits, the commander had decreed. Audits of a certain former Detective Simmons, who turned out not to be one of the good people. A murderer, almost, of me, mine wife Chaya, and the little fetus that in her was growing.

That last piece into such trouble he got him daylight he would never see. Sure, trying to bomb your partner and his wife was bad. But a preborn trying to murder brought on him down the wrath of the GodForce—Preborn Investigation Bureau—with their lawyers and prosecutors and special powers.

Fine, so auditing I had to do. Mine punishment for surviving him trying to blow us up. The stack of papers setting on fire with mine eyes I tried. Not enough strong a glare. I sighed and pulled the next folder open, to read what five years ago he did that might have been wrong.

Simmons, yemach shemo—may his name be erased—was maybe inside APD part of a terror group. Fighting crime wasn’t for them good enough. Killing people they thought were guilty was what they wanted. For them I was looking—because mine other job was as a Mogen Dovid for the Jewish Sanhedrin. A defender of our people—the Jewish people. To APD and GodForce, though, the Sanhedrin was a terrorist organization. If they even knew it existed. And on mine hands already I had blood.

This folder was from eight years ago. A murder, no fetuses involved. Religion not involved either. On the maybe pile I put it. The no pile an ant could see over. For yes, there was no pile. Later that would pile up, for after I reread each folder in the maybe pile.

Mine electronic clutter swept to one side of mine desk, and a picture of a phone in its place appeared. I tapped mine earbud. Detective Myers.

How’s it going, pahdnah? Most Blessed Jethro Waters, mine liaison to the Preborn Investigation Bureau, like on a horse, a cowboy he sounded. Also, loopy a little.

I don’t have a partner, I said. I’m a—ah—alone ranger.

Lone Ranger. Lone Ranger, Shmuley. You’ve got to work on your idioms.

We didn’t have Lone Rangers where I grew up. Because where I grew up, we only had the Torah, and the Gemara—Talmud—and books by rabbis about things only to be more Jewish to know. Vids only of religious topics, for kids even too there was only ‘kosher’ programming.

Whatever. You’ve got me, like it or not. Pahdnah.

Oh, did you apply to APD? I hear there’s an opening for a homicide detective.

Ha, Jethro said. Yeah, Simmons. That’s the reason for my call. Clear, his voice got, the Abilene from his accent disappearing. But still to me he looked like on drugs.

"Nu? You done interrogating him?" To the PIBniks Simmons, from the hospital being discharged got transferred. Federal, they said, trumping our local jurisdiction. Because of a fetus he tried to hurt, not for two real humans almost at his hands dying.

Yes, Jethro said. On screen his face sagged like when too close beeswax got to a candle. From firm to loose. Medications, I hoped. We’re done interrogating him.

And?

And he was found dead in his cell about twenty minutes ago.

Dead in Custody

Into my veins like icy water, adrenaline dripped. In your custody? I looked around, caught Dawson’s eye, pointed to mine ear. I need to put my lieutenant on the call. Okay?

Sure, he said. It’s official business, after all.

The lieutenant got close to mine desk and I tapped him into the call. Simmons is dead in GodForce custody, I said.

How? When? What happened? Dawson’s face didn’t change not a bit even, but in his eyes I could a fire see burn suddenly.

Lieutenant, this is Jethro Waters from the PIB. This is an official notification of the death of one of your officers—

—former officer, Waters.

—still on your payroll, Lieutenant. Jethro looked like he was trying at least to look sober. Alfred Simmons died of unknown causes at eleven thirty-seven last night, in PIB custody.

Unknown? Dawson said. In his tone fury I heard, badly hidden.

Jethro winced on the video link. Unknown causes, yes, sir.

And you didn’t catch it on video?

He became ill yesterday morning after his shower. Rashes all over his body. In the afternoon he started having stomach symptoms, then tremors. Jethro shook his head. He’d just changed into a new prison uniform, and there was some liquid on it that might have been a toxin. We found out about it the hard way. One of our guards is in critical condition after going into his cell to treat him. They think it’s an allergic response, but… He shrugged. Symptoms don’t match, the reports say.

Damn it! Dawson barked. Then paused. Sorry, Waters, Myers.

I’ve heard words like that before, Dawson, Jethro said, with a smile grim so you’d know he wasn’t going to get distracted. We’ll convene an inquest, and we need someone from your squad to participate in the investigation.

Hmm, Dawson said. We should bring the commander in on this. Can you hold?

Sure.

I tapped the call to hold, and Dawson I followed to the only office in the squad room. A real wood door it had. He knocked.

Enter!

The desk inside took up the whole office almost. And just a real one, not like us a vid screen being the whole desk top. Dawson pointed at his ear as he sat down.

Commander Otis Pierce pressed buttons on his desk telephone. He the postcard picture of an Aryan was, if you ever a 5’4" saw one, with hair cut like a buzz.

Commander Pierce here.

Jethro in a few sentences brought up Commander Pierce to date.

Okay, he said. I have to make a few calls.

Up the chain of command he meant. One of the chiefs. Or the PR person. Above mine grade of pay, no matter what.

Our Internal Affairs needs to contact yours ASAP to get on this.

Ah, about that. Jethro sounded uncomfortable even more. Blessed Defender Richards is getting someone from DC to take that part over. Because, um, of the previous case.

Richards was the head of GodForce for all of Central Texas. Was a Federal Prosecutor once, even. Because the local prosecutor was killed in the previous case. Where a meshuggeneh—crazy—Godmother Inquisitor of theirs, murdered one of my best friends. And also a fellow GodMother Inquisitor. And Jethro almost. Oh, and also a zookeeper and a fetus. And a tiger.

Pierce grimaced. I’ll take this up the chain. We’ll at least need access to all your case data up until Simmons died.

Richards said you’d need that.

I’ll get back with Richards within an hour, mine commander said.

Until then. Jethro clicked off.

Well, gentlemen, Pierce said. I’ve got calls to make.

Dawson opened the door and I through it slipped before the commander more work could shove my way.

I breathed a sigh of relief when quitting time came. At least mine stomach stopped scaring passers-by with its empty rumbling.

Way Home

Into mine car I got. Vehicle, route to my house, I told it. The car for a moment thought about that, then from the garage started, heading home.

Chaya as soon as I gave mine car its marching orders called.

Is everything all right? I asked.

Why not? Are you on your way? Chaya asked.

Ya. You want I should pick something up from the grocery store?

While you’re fasting? Oh, sure. We didn’t need our ration points for anything important anyway.

Funny woman.

Yes, Chaya said. I am.

How are you feeling? This question at work I couldn’t ask. Chaya was maybe a month pregnant. Tsnius—modesty—made talking about these things not for outsiders to discuss.

I’m still well, she said. There’s nothing to do now but wait until there’s something to see on the ultrasound.

And to make a GodForce appointment before they call on us at home, I said. Or, God forbid, at work!

Yes, she said, crisply. That would be an awkward thing to have happen.

We let silence for a moment talk.

"You ready for shul?" I asked.

Ready, almost, she said. "You should have time to change before heading to shul for megillah reading."

And drinking, she didn’t say, but in her voice I could hear the jealousy. Drinking and pregnant meant jail, maybe for years, for endangering what the government called a preborn citizen. For us Jews, abortion wasn’t maybe a good thing, but a sin, let alone murder, it was not.

"I’ll only have a bissel booze, I said. A little bit. After all, I’m not on duty, or on call."

"A bissel," she said. Of mine drinking she knew when we met. A bissel for me then would make two yeshiva students drunk. But that was Before Chaya. Now was After, and to feel good about mineself, alcohol I didn’t need.

I’ll be watching you from upstairs, she grumbled. Because separating women from men we did for prayers—and everything else. But she worried. Don’t go wild.

About that I laughed. The one day when any kind of crazy happened at shul was Purim. Booze and nice cookies… Mine stomach, I realized, for mine brain was talking.

"I’ll be a little bit then, ahuvi," I said. My love. I hung up.

Manual override, I said to the car, and took the wheel. Systems off, I said after, and the whole car’s computer went to sleep.

Up MoPac I drove slowly (not that driving fast ever on it happened). Trains grumbling alongside the road all the way to 45th Street, when the road swelled lanes and branched like fingers to all sides. I went west, and got a few miles from mine house to a supermarket.

The HEB was huge, and as usual split into Subsid and open sides. I opened mine rear door, took out two bright orange bags for packages to carry, and slowly closed it. Locking I didn’t do, even if it might be an invitation for stealing the car.

On the ration and cash side I entered, and for Chaya bought a nice flower. One flower, but enough ration points it cost for a whole day to eat. Why roses were expensive I didn’t understand. Maybe it was that growing them cost more with not having land. Because for food growing, all the land was needed. For the Subsid. Some in the city a crime they called it to have big families. Taxes on them what they didn’t want to pay for others’ insurance, and Subsid food and everything else.

It was a bracha—blessing—for families to have six, seven, eight kids. But almost all on Subsid lived, from parents not enough money making. The Rebbe a little meat on Shabbes and on holidays gave to those families, from charity the shul collected from us. Sometimes clothing not handed down there was for them.

The flower and I back to the car made it. Inside, the smell was of wet dog and sweat. And a whole body’s fear.

Stay down, I said quietly. Don’t say anything, don’t look up. I’ll tell you when to get out.

The car I drove, carefully what with crazy people driving without their computers on, to the Highland Mall bus stations, where everyone who didn’t have a car—almost everyone—had to transfer from one to another bus. I stopped a block away, by dumpsters to a Subsid block belonging. Even with it only being March, the smell woke me up.

There’s a bag with stuff on the car floor, I said. Take it. Don’t look at me and don’t look back.

Wh-where do I go next?

The little voice at me tore like a crow on a body not yet dead feasting. She couldn’t be more than thirteen, if that. I rummaged in mine pockets for a bill or two, and over the back of the seat tossed them, keeping mine hat on to hide mine face.

Take the money, but don’t use it here. Someone will stop here in the next hour and flash their lights twice, then once. You got that?

Yeah, came the too-young voice. Upline would every woman try to save, but for the women their lives were like an empty piggy bank, their dreams smashed.

Twice, then once. Then you get in the back and lie down, just like you did here. Okay?

Oh-okay. A pause. Thank you so much! A tremble in her voice she got, and I cleared mine throat.

You are welcome, I said in my best non-Yiddish accent. Now go before someone sees you. Or me.

She opened the door and got. The windows I rolled down what to clean the air from her not bathing in who knew how long. It was when I got home fully dark. The car’s brains I turned on for the car to park itself. Then from the garage to the kitchen I walked in, the rose holding in front of me.

To see Chaya sitting, smiling, talking with two GodMothers in their full, dark blood-red, uniforms and capes.

Prep

Oh, there you are! Chaya smiled. I didn’t put my Queen Vashti costume on yet. Shoshi and Miriam came by to see it first.

A better look at the women I took. Not GodMothers. Neighbors from shul. For this shock mine heart wasn’t built. Nice, ah, costumes, I said. Are you two changing careers?

You mean, letting Motskeh take care of all the kids and I go out and work like this? Miriam waved at herself.

I should have known they were Purim costumes. Miriam and Shoshana were both wearing their kerchiefs, Miriam’s over a fancy wig. She and Motskeh always a step above everyone else they took things. Covering her hair, a woman should do after marrying. But a wig, and then a kerchief to cover the not-hair? A bragging of modesty.

I think we’re going to be late, is what I wanted to say. But that would be to all of them maybe sound insulting, as if they were fishwives, making gossip. "Do you know when Megillah reading starts?" sounded to me better. Even though I knew anyway it was almost at the end of Maariv, the evening prayers.

Chaya leaned backwards to read the clock on the stove almost behind her. Half an hour, she said, standing up. I’ll show you the outfit.

Shmuley, you dressing up? Shoshana asked. Mordechai the hero, maybe?

I laughed, and my face was red I knew from embarrassment. No, no. Just a palace guard.

So… Miriam said, you’re going to be a cop from the time of Persia?

I shrugged. "Nu, at least I know how to act, I said. But no handcuffs back then. Or paperwork."

Chaya laughed. "Go, change. I’ll switch with you when you’re done and they can see your queen.

Her as a queen I wanted to see, but maybe that would be something from her to take off afterward. Mine not-food appetite was like a starving man, even knowing she was pregnant. That we finally were fulfilling our commandment from Hashem—God—to go forth and multiply.

Late. Right. My face like a boy before a candy store I stood, glotzing at mine wife, who was back at me grinning. She understood.

"Nu? Go!" She made at me shooing signs.

I nodded and got up the stairs.

Costumes were hard once a Jew became a grownup. There was tsnius, of course, modesty as important to me it was as for Chaya. Respecting ourselves by respecting what clothing we wore. Nothing that would be give the wrong idea about Jewish customs or beliefs. Also ourselves to honor dignity, even when drunk on Purim.

So a different hat like a cone over mine kippah I wore, and a funny vest like what monkeys in movies had, worn over mine suit jacket. I thought to put away mine badge and gun but then left them. I could put at least my guns away in the car at the shul. After all that happened in the last few weeks, I needed mine metal teddy bear, as Chaya called it.

Chaya’s friends left with a titter after I came down the stairs. She shook her head at the front door. I convinced them to call themselves the Haman Sisters.

I snorted. Haman was the evil man in the story of Queen Esther. Hamentashen, the traditional triangular cookie made on Purim, meant Haman’s Hat.

I don’t know about how good those are as costumes, I said. Too real, too close. They’re almost funny, you know? But almost.

Chaya reached out and patted mine arm, then pulled on it, reeling me into a hug. You’ve had some awful time with the GodForce people. But not all are like that.

I’d killed one, who her own kind had killed as well as mine best friend. And Jethro had a criminal interrogated Chaya. I still in mine belly had anger over that. Good she didn’t compare Jethro to them.

Like Jethro. You like him, right?

Oy. I tucked mine face into her kerchief and took a deep breath. Out with mine anger, in with the smell of Chaya. Out. In. If she could forgive him, mine anger had no home to be in me. Yes, I said slowly. Like Jethro.

Good. I’ll be down in a minute.

Or five. I kept mine phone in mine pocket. She waited for me enough times that I could—

Can you come up and help me, Shmuley?

Helping with dressing when I had the shoulder with the bullet hole…I shrugged and trotted up the stairs.

The costume on her was big. Big enough that a nice dress she could wear under it. Which she wasn’t, and nothing else either. It was blue and gauzy in the middle, and blue and sparkly like embroidered lace on top and bottom. Even the skirt, down almost to her toes, was sheer, leaving for me nothing hiding.

You like? Chaya’s voice was lower, fuzzy like hair on peaches rubbed on the cheek. If before mine appetite for mine wife was awake, now it was like a starving man hungry.

I stared, only.

I’ll take that as a yes.

Then I reached for her and tight pulled her in for a kiss. For air we had to stop a minute—a year—later.

A shaky hand she put between us and pushed a little.

For later, she said, her voice almost like mine deep. If we start now, we’ll miss everything.

Everything, I said, we’ll have later. I let her push me away.

Go, go. She waved at me. That was all the help I needed.

I shook mine head and unsteadily walked down the stairs. I wondered how this we could do with children in the house.

Chaya was all business when she returned a few minutes later. "Grab the mishloach manos," she said, pointing to three plastic bags slumped on the kitchen floor by the fridge. Traditional holiday goodie bags of food for the holiday, to give to friends and the needy.

What did you make?

"Like I had time to make anything? I bought hamentashen from Shoshi, and I raided our can closet for little cans of tuna fish," she said.

Shoshi’s hamentashen with jam or poppy seeds filling them. It was a lot of ration points to get the fillings but we needed to bring our gifts to shul so we could fulfill the mitzvah—religious duty—of giving food to others.

Tuna fish?

It’s what we had enough cans of, I said.

"With hamentashen?"

They won’t eat them together, I’m sure.

The bags I hefted as Chaya locked up, and I loaded up the car. I drove by hand the few blocks to the shul, getting mine mind ready for praying and thinking thoughts clean for the kehila—congregation—instead of the bedroom.

Megillah Reading

Two blocks away only I found parking. To drive meant money to buy cars, and gas. And rationing we had for that. Also, most families a minibus they needed for all their kids. Small cars like ours less and less I saw on the road. I remember not fifteen years ago more pickups and bigger cars.

I pulled from mine belt mine pistol and into the car safe put it. Then to mine leg I reached down—and then just stood back up.

Chaya mine arm gave a hug. Worried about trouble here? Here? Now?

I don’t think so. To mineself, out loud I lied. Just still being a bit nervous. About the terrorist attack in Chaya’s school I was thinking. From that, the nightmares were still almost every night coming, and mine shoulder reminded me even when one night I slept well.

Two uniformed officers I saw standing by the front doors, when to the shul we got. They were watching the parade of funny-dressed grownups, surrounded by clouds of children into the shul making their way.

Me one of them saw and laughed. Hey, Detective, can I take a picture? Ruiz Petersen, a senior corporal, was mine height but almost rail thin, with graying, stubble-short sideburns contrasting nicely with his olive complexion.

Like a movie star I put mine hand up. No, no, please no, I said. Maybe a little too loud; at us other people looked.

Besides, I said, I know where that picture of you with the dog biscuits is. He in the K-9 unit worked.

He winced. That damn photo, he muttered.

Yep, I said. And we don’t want it up on the squad picture boards, do we?

He sighed. I get drunk one time, one time, and I’m paying for it three years on.

I grinned at him, then hefted the aluminum broom handle of mine spear. A butter knife to the end of it I taped. Nothing too sharp. I must pass. I am on guard duty.

He’s guarding me, officer, Chaya said, smiling at him demurely.

Petersen, to his credit, at her didn’t stare. Mad about dogs he might be, but in manners he was well-trained.

Chaya pulled me along.

I glared as a camera he yanked from a pocket as we passed by. Kissing your dog and sharing a biscuit with her. On your knees. Wearing her leash and collar.

He stuffed the camera phone into his pocket back. We walked through the door; I stopped to kiss the mezzuzah on the doorpost.

Leash? Chaya murmured.

I didn’t see it, but I heard about it.

You have such interesting co-workers, she said.

I remembered I forgot the news about Simmons to tell her. But I heard in her voice her smile, and when I turned to her, she’d pinned a veil into place. Gauzy just like most of the dress. Oy.

I’ll be upstairs with the women, she said, bumping against mine hurt shoulder for a moment before two of the mishloach manos taking from me up the stairs. I smiled. Bad news always until later could wait. The dead already were.

Inside the shul proper, Maariv already they were starting.

I looked for mine usual seat. Not that reserved seats we had, but sitting with friends was the habit. Next to mine friend Yossel’s empty chair I sat. He, only a few weeks before, was killed by a GodForce machshefa—witch—before back I killed her. I wondered if Rivkeh, his widow so new she just finished sitting shiva, was here. For the kids, at least, they should come.

The prayer service tonight was quick, and because of all the children, noisy, too. The Book of Esther was a good story, simple even for a school child to understand.

When they stopped to read the Megillah, it was like the Torah reading. A scroll, spread out on the table facing the Aron Kodesh, where in the Torah scrolls were stored.

I looked to the back and up at the women’s balcony, but the lace curtains were on purpose a divider between them and our base, male, impure thoughts. I sighed. That on Chaya was an amazing costume.

On the bimah—the table at the front of the room—a cast of characters stood around the closed scroll. The Rebbe his usual hat he wore, but with an ostrich feather coming up from it. Like a tall, balding peacock? So thin he was that in the wind he looked like he might blow away. In his sixties, and with a white beard it straggled halfway down to the floor. But looks, I knew from in the gym seeing him lift sets of weights, sometimes lied.

Two men stood on the sides of the bimah also, one like a green monster with on his neck knobs sticking out, the other like some bird man dressed, with feathers along the back of his arms, a mask over his eyes. Oy.

Yitzhak Ziv, our Gabai—sexton—wasn’t there. Reb Yitzhak usually ran the Megillah readings on holidays and fast days. Someone had to keep the service going and in order. I looked around, as others also were, to find him. After a few minutes, the Rebbe shrugged and banged on the dais until only little kids were making the noises. That was as close to quiet as we got, what with the shmoozing that always went on, in the middle of services even.

Reb Shmuley.

I looked up. Boruch Davidson, a lieutenant in APD’s SWAT unit, at me nodded. Half of one I gave him back. Reb Boruch.

I heard about Simmons, he said.

It’s not over, I said quietly. There’s more going on.

A cop shrug he gave me. There’s always more going on. More death, more stupidity, more bravery without honor.

In his eyes I saw mine, in the future ten years. What kind of father would I be, owning those eyes? Boruch was religious, successful, and divorced after no kids having. His ex had remarried, not a year after that, and lived still in Austin, to this shul