Simantov

by Asaf Ashery

  “Do you want to sing ‘Why is This Night Different from All Other Nights?’”

  For Mazzy, this was too much.

  Noga had passed all the developmental tests with flying colors, placing in the ninetieth percentile in every category. Mazzy was familiar with the entire terminology of speech therapy. When it came to Noga’s communication difficulties, she and Gaby spared no efforts.

  Mazzy could identify all the blockages in the mouth that can impede airflow: lips; teeth; palate; uvula. She knew the mechanics of word formation, the different functions of the tongue, velum and pharynx in the production of consonants and vowels. She knew Noga was capable of canonical vocalization and marginal syllables, and possessed permanent phonetic patterns.

  But all this professional jargon didn’t change the facts. The smartest, most beautiful girl in the world, her daughter, did not speak. At least, not in a manner the outside world could make sense of. She was silent, serene, and wonderful. With her parents she communicated via looks, pantomime, and peals of laughter. But a verbal conversation was yet to be had.

  Rachel’s question still hung in the air, and Mazzy began to wonder if it was her own paranoia vis-à-vis her mother – often supported by facts – or just an innocent, crooning question a grandma would address to a child. Mazzy felt she had once again come unhinged by Rachel’s mind games.

  It was another simple, effective trap. And she lost because she played along. You can’t play against someone who keeps changing the rules and win. Rachel managed to make her feel like a little girl even when the question had to do with Noga.

  With Rachel conducting from the head of the table, the guests sang the traditional song in a way that, to Mazzy, sounded like a monotonous and soulless children’s song. She noticed that Gaby had joined in, apparently thinking that singing would defuse the tension. His inability to grasp the situation annoyed her. Rachel stayed silent; she hugged Noga tightly, pressing the girl’s cheek against hers.

  The girl’s smooth pink skin accentuated the few wrinkles on Rachel’s face. Although Rachel was twice Mazzy’s age, people often took her for thirty. At this moment, Mazzy was ready to gift her an extra twenty years; she was that upset.

  If there was one trait she hoped she had inherited from her mother, it was her ability to appear ageless, and to face history with a strained but triumphant smile.

  Rachel shot her an inquiring look through the candles, and Mazzy, who had anticipated it, responded with defiance. From an early age she had gotten used to her mother reading her thoughts. This power of Rachel’s helped her cultivate a remarkable honesty. What point was there in lying? Now, the mere thought of heading toward the door was enough for Rachel to cast a menacing glance at her daughter. But Mazzy was not impressed.

  When her beeper started chirping, she welcomed it like the bell for end of school and sent a silent prayer of thanks to Gaby. Since both of them had to carry beepers as part of their jobs, they made a pact that if one of them wanted to leave a social gathering, he or she would send the other an urgent message. Mazzy got up, apologized to the guests and reclaimed from Rachel’s hands the little girl who had become a battleground in the generational war.

  Gaby reacted with surprise, and began collecting his daughter’s toys. Mazzy glanced at her beeper and realized that the call hadn’t been a ruse. It was work.

  Rachel saw them to the door. The attendees, including Ashling, rose to their feet as soon as their queen left her throne. The Simantov women stood facing each other in the hallway. They knew that everyone in the next room was listening.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Rachel hissed in a loud whisper.

  “Leaving.”

  “The one time when I host a Seder…”

  “It’s not always about you. I need to get back to work.”

  Mazzy was mad at herself. Rachel was trying to end the evening respectfully, in front of her guests. But the stories she had whispered to Noga had led Mazzy to lose her cool. Nothing good could come of her behavior now.

  Gaby appeared with the bundled girl on one arm and a bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Good night, Rachel,” she wished her mother.

  Gaby muttered, “Happy Passover,” as they left his mother-in-law’s kingdom. Unfolding the stroller, Mazzy rushed down the stoop, and glanced at her beeper again. It was a precinct’s number, probably Sima.

  “You’re improving. Arranging for someone else to call you. Not bad.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said gruffly; her anger hadn’t dissipated.

  “Nothing. I didn’t think we were so sophisticated. We’ll be home before ten. I never dreamed we’d get out so soon. I may be able to watch the end of the game.”

  “Honey, I didn’t arrange this with anyone. I’m driving to the precinct; you drive home from there. Forget about ten o’clock. I can’t plan when a person goes missing.”

  “What happened?”

  “Never mind. Get in the car.”

  His chronic exhaustion and Mazzy’s fondness for driving confined Gaby to the passenger seat, as usual. When she was edgy, she needed to be in control. He had learned to accept this. They drove in silence for a few minutes, while Mazzy checked the messages on her cellphone.

  Gaby broke the silence. “Everything okay?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “I know that it’s tough.”

  He knew nothing and they both knew it. Often, when he tried to make her feel better, he only made things worse. They were out of Rachel’s house, but Rachel was not out of them; her spirit hovered over the night.

  “A new patient?”

  Not a patient, an investigation, a case. His ignorance angered her. Whatever he said now would sound like the screeching of a first violin lesson.

  “Mandelbrot’s daughter.”

  “What about her?”

  “What about her? They found her!” She barked at him.

  Silence until the precinct.

  Gaby had no energy for another fight in which he would be defeated before the battle had even begun. Mazzy won every time, fair and square. But every time she felt she had lost.

  THE FIRST GATE

  GLORY

  THE SEVENTH DAY

  OF THE COUNTING OF THE OMER

  ”It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.”

  PROVERBS 25:2

  Chief Inspector Yariv Biton’s Passover Seder had been ruined. Again.

  Precisely at the moment when his unit was handed a case that could make or break a career, he was ordered to set up a Special Investigations Team; and in his old division to boot – the Missing Persons Division.

  His original mandate had been to figure out how the charred bodies of nine security guards – one with his heart ripped out – had ended up in black body bags and hauled to the “dump.” But now, he would have to play babysitter to an adolescent girl acting out her rebel-without-a-cause routine.

  He tried to protest, to foist the case on the Youth Division, then to palm it off on the social workers.

  To no avail.

  He tried to call in his markers, anyone who owed him a favor, either small or large, but everyone had the same answer:

  “Biton, grow up. You’re stuck with the case. It’s his own daughter, and Hizzonor wants you.”

  And Hizzonor got what he wanted. Yariv rushed to the elite club in the south of town, the last place where Justice Shalvi’s daughter had been seen, and where Moscovitch now stood with a worried expression on his face.

  A veteran detective, Moscovitch had been around the block a couple of times. If an original thought ever crossed his mind, he did his best to ignore it. Moscovitch’s assets were five years to retirement, encyclopedic knowledge of rules and regulations, and a remarkable talent for ass-covering from all directions. If he was worried, there must be a good reason.

  “You finally showed up.”

  “You can’t wait to pass the buck to someone else.”<
br />
  “It’s the Judge’s daughter. Nothing good can come of it.”

  “Spill it.”

  “Estie Shalvi, fourteen years old. Went out clubbing at two in the morning with her girlfriends. Two hours later, they say she disappeared with some guy. She texted her friends that the two of them were taking off, or something to that effect. After that, she never answered her cellphone, never called or texted, left no message, and none of them has heard from her since.”

  “She’s only fourteen. How did she get into the club?”

  “When did you last look at a fourteen year-old girl?”

  “Who questioned them?”

  “The new cop, Libby. She said they looked OK. Said they didn’t do drugs or drink, and went back home only in the morning because the fog last night was so heavy you couldn’t see the road. They weren’t too worried about Estie. According to them, the guy she left with was a real looker.

  “She danced with him most of the time. He was blond, wore a million-dollar suit. A bit too old for their taste, but then, to them, anyone older than twenty is a senior citizen. Libby must have come across as a grandma, and she’s fresh out of the police academy.”

  “Find anything?”

  “It was foggy yesterday, both outside and in. Outside, you couldn’t see anything, and inside, you had those smoke machines. There’s a ton of stuff. They combed the scene with tweezers and found the usual: cloth fibers, tin foil, cellophane, two cellphones, sequins, makeup, hair pieces, some drugs. One of the bouncers turned out to have a record.”

  “I’ll talk to the crime lab later. Has she done this before?”

  “Once. Went to Eilat with some boyfriend. She called home a day later, cried and said she was sorry. According to the Judge, she’s a good kid. But what father wants to think otherwise? How else will he get through the night?”

  “Why are we even here? It hasn’t been forty-eight hours yet.”

  “It was designated an ‘Immediate Investigation’.”

  “Who designated it?”

  “The mother, then Judge Shalvi, then the boss.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “The mother says the kid has asthma, carries an inhaler, probably not full.”

  Yariv tried to figure out the pecking order. It was clear he was pretty low on it. The Judge and Department Chief obviously outranked him. He tried to place the mother in the chain of command.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s waiting to talk to the Special Investigations Team.”

  “How does she know about the team?”

  “Biton, she created it. She’s the reason there is a Special Investigations Team.”

  Yariv followed the direction of Moscovitch’s nod.

  The Judge’s wife was about thirty-eight years old, and must have been a stunning beauty in her youth. Some women improve with the years; to Leah Shalvi-Aiello, the years had been extremely kind. She had a pair of sparkling but worried green eyes, and straight fair hair meticulously styled. Yariv was reminded of someone but couldn’t pin it down. Good memories, some painful, yet completely incongruous with the situation at hand. He roused himself from his thoughts. Mrs Shalvi-Aiello gave him a delicate hand in greeting.

  “Chief Inspector Yariv Biton, I hope I’m not wrong?”

  “Yes.”

  She inspected him from head to toe and it didn’t take long. Some men seem taller than they really are. Yariv Biton was not one of them.

  The silence was uncomfortable until Yariv realized he was expected to break it.

  “You know Estie. I don’t know her yet. Your husband told my officer she’s well behaved. What else can you tell us about your daughter?”

  “Estie is a good kid. But her father doesn’t know everything about her.”

  Over the years he spent in the Missing Persons Division, Yariv had seen many mothers of missing children; this one didn’t behave like any of them.

  She hid her feelings surprisingly well. Some mothers kept their cool despite the hysteria that threatened to overcome them at any minute, but nothing like this, not this expertly. Even though Judge Shalvi had the reputation of someone who stood his ground, his wife was clearly the one in control. Yariv made a mental note to tread warily.

  “She’s a straight A student. Lots of friends. A very responsible kid.”

  “Look, Mrs Shalvi, we don’t know each other, and I understand this may be awkward, but…”

  “Shalvi-Aiello, and I do know you. You served several years in Missing Persons, two in narcotics, and the last three in major crime. My husband says you bring solid cases; you have a keen eye, and a good head on your shoulders. Yours was the first name that came up when I asked him who should head the investigation team. You have your own methods, you earned several citations, shook some important hands at Independence Day celebrations. But right now, the only thing in your career that matters is finding my daughter.”

  There was a threat in there somewhere but Yariv set it aside and threw away the key.

  “OK, let’s start from the beginning. How is your relationship with Estie?”

  “We are quite close. She knows I’m there for her, but she’s also very independent. She knows how to take care of herself.”

  “Do you talk often?”

  “Every day. Sometimes two, three times. She always answers my calls, tells me what’s going on. We are not best friends, but I think I’m on her top ten list.”

  A broad, proud smile, perhaps too broad, was intended to bolster that last assertion. She knows they are not good friends. She also knows that, at this age, no mother and daughter are best friends. She knows, too, that she is trying to keep her daughter on a tight leash, but it’s not working. At least it didn’t work last night.

  “So, she also calls you quite often?”

  “Not all our conversations are on the phone. Once a week we go to the Country Club, we swim, we sunbathe, we play tennis. She’s pretty good at tennis…”

  She stopped to catch her breath, sniffled, and then resumed her posture, like a gymnast resolved to finish her routine after an unsuccessful landing. He allowed her a moment to swallow, then tried to steer her in the right direction, because from his point of view, she was going in the wrong one.

  “So she tells you about the people she goes out with?”

  “I am quite sure she doesn’t tell me everything, but she tells me enough to give me an idea.”

  “Look, I’m no great expert on kids, but if I remember correctly, she is at an age when she hates you, and she’d probably puke if she heard you call her a responsible person.”

  “I trust her, but this doesn’t mean she doesn’t act foolishly sometimes. She goes out with older boys. She comes home long after her father thinks she’s back, and she did drugs at least once that I know of.”

  For a judge’s daughter, this was a pretty good record, and Leah reeled off most of it with a studied nonchalance that highlighted the last item.

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “Weed.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We smoked together. She caught me with a joint, and I thought it was okay for her to try it once: a) to dispel the mystery and b) if your mom does it, it’s probably not that cool.”

  Yariv’s brain began working in all possible directions, creating flow charts.

  The answer had a certain logic and an impressive honesty to it, but it was also worrying. If everything was out in the open, it meant she was desperate. But if she was desperate, it meant that not everything was out in the open, and what she was hiding might be crucial. Nobody tells the police everything. They’re conditioned to distrust strangers, and even though she knew his CV off by heart, they were still strangers. He decided, for now, not to press her.

  Not because she was Shalvi’s wife, but because she was liable to break down. All mothers of missing girls eventually broke down. It was normal. It was human. It was expected. When it didn’t happen, you should worry. Most times, this happened severa
l hours after the spouse has crumpled. Who knew, maybe Judge Shalvi was holed up in his office crying like a baby? Maybe that’s why he wasn’t here.

  “Isn’t it dangerous to let a teenager with asthma smoke?”

  “She doesn’t have asthma. She’s allergic to pine blossoms, and this isn’t the season.”

  “So you lied?”

  “She’s a judge’s daughter and all that. But even my husband wouldn’t have been able to designate it an ‘Immediate Investigation’ without the asthma that she doesn’t have.”

  Yariv snapped his fingers in the direction of Moscovitch’s new assistant, a motion usually reserved for a slow waitress or a valet who neglected to tag your key at the parking lot.

  Libby came over quickly, eager to please. Yariv turned his head aside and said quietly, “See if Mrs Shalvi-Aiello needs a ride home. We don’t need her at the station.”

  “Have you found anything yet?” Leah asked. For the first time since they had met, her voice betrayed concern. It must have been his mumbled instructions. Good news is usually announced out loud.

  “Nothing. We’ll let you know. Right now we must make sure everyone is doing their job, so that your daughter will be home as soon as possible.”

  Yariv and Moscovitch made their way to the Crime Lab vehicles, parked outside the club, which was cordoned off with crime scene tape and cones.

  “You used to work with Rosolio, didn’t you? What was his first rule for leaving the scene?”

  Moscovitch worked hard to keep the look of resentment off his face.

  He had graduated the same year as the legendary retired detective, and was getting tired of the cult of personality that surrounded Rosolio.

  “Go to the crime lab and ask to see the oddest thing they found at the scene.”

  At the mobile crime lab, they were already packing up.

  All their containers, bags, and tags had been carefully stored for future cataloguing. Some of the processing was conducted on the scene, to minimize the paperwork to be done later in the air-conditioned lab. Yariv was not envious of the “plastic people.”