The Butcher's Theater

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “How much homicide experience?”

  “He put in time on the old woman from Musrara—the one asphyxiated by the burglar’s gag. And he came onto Gray Man shortly before we . . . reduced our activity. Along with Daoud, whom I also want.”

  “The Arab from Bethlehem?”

  “The same.”

  “That,” said Laufer, “could prove awkward.”

  “I’m aware of that. But the benefits exceed the drawbacks.”

  “Name them.”

  Daniel did and the deputy commander listened with a bland expression on his face. After several moments of deliberation he said, “You want an Arab, okay, but you’ll have to run a tight ship. If it turns into a security case he’ll be transferred out immediately—for his own good, as well as ours. And it will go down on your record as an administrative blunder.”

  Daniel ignored the threat, put forth his next request. “Something this big, I could use more than one samal. There’s a kid over at the Russian Compound named Ben Aharon—”

  “Forget it on both counts,” said Laufer. He turned on his heel, began walking back to the Volvo, forcing Daniel to follow in order to hear what he was saying. “Business as usual—one samal—and I’ve already chosen him. New hire named Avi Cohen, just transferred from Tel Aviv.”

  “What talent does he have to pull a transfer so soon?”

  “Young, strong, eager, earned a ribbon in Lebanon.” Laufer paused. “He’s the third son of Pinni Cohen, the Labor MK from Petah Tikva.”

  “Didn’t Cohen just die?”

  “Two months ago. Heart attack, all the stress. In case you don’t read the papers, he was one of our friends in Knesset, a sweetheart during budget struggles. Kid’s got a good record and we’d be doing the widow a favor.”

  “Why the transfer?”

  “Personal reasons.”

  “How personal?”

  “Nothing to do with his work. He had an affair with the wife of a superior. Asher Davidoffs blonde, a first-class kurva.”

  “It indicates,” said Daniel, “a distinct lack of good judgment.”

  The deputy commander waved away his objection.

  “It’s an old story with her, Sharavi. She goes for the young ones, makes a blatant play for them. No reason for Cohen to eat it because he got caught. Give him a chance.”

  His tone indicated that further debate was unwelcome, and Daniel decided the issue wasn’t worth pressing. He’d gotten nearly everything he wanted. There’d be plenty of quiet work for this Cohen. Enough to keep him busy and out of trouble.

  “Fine,” he said, suddenly impatient with talk. Looking over his shoulder at the Hagah man, he began mentally framing his interview questions, the best way to approach an old soldier.

  “. . . absolutely no contact with the press,” Laufer was saying, “I’ll let you know if and when a leak is called for. You’ll report directly to me. Keep me one hundred percent informed.”

  “Certainly. Anything else?”

  “Nothing else,” said Laufer. “Just clear this one up.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  After the deputy commander had been driven away, Daniel walked over to Schlesinger. He told the uniformed officers to wait by their car and extended his hand to the Hagah man. The one that gripped it in return was hard and dry.

  “Adon Schlesinger, I’m Pakad Sharavi. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Sharavi?” The man’s voice was deep, hoarse, his Hebrew clipped short by the vestiges of a German accent. “You’re a Yemenite?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “I knew a Sharavi once,” said Schlesinger. “Skinny little fellow—Moshe the baker. Lived in the Old City before we lost it in ’48, left to join the crew that built the cable trolley from the Ophthalmic Hospital to Mount Zion.” He pointed south. “We put it up every night, dismantled it before sunrise. So the goddamned British wouldn’t catch us sending food and medicine to our fighters.”

  “My uncle,” said Daniel.

  “Ach, small world. How’s he doing?”

  “He died five years ago.”

  “What from?”

  “Stroke.”

  “How old was he, seventy?” Schlesinger’s face had drawn tight with anxiety, the bushy white eyebrows drooping low over watery blue eyes.

  “Seventy-nine.”

  “Seventy-nine,” echoed Schlesinger. “Could be worse. He was a hell of a worker for a little guy, never griped. You come from good stock, Pakad Sharavi.”

  “Thank you.” Daniel pulled out his note pad. Schlesinger’s eyes followed him, stopped, focused on the back of his hand. Stared at the scar tissue. An observant one, thought Daniel.

  “Tell me about your patrol,” he said.

  Schlesinger shrugged. “What’s there to tell? I walk up and down the road five times a night, scaring away jackrabbits.”

  “How long have you been with Hagah?”

  “Fourteen years, first spring out of the reserves. Patrolled Rehavya for thirteen of them, past the Prime Minister’s house. A year ago I bought a flat in the towers on French Hill—near your headquarters—and the wife insisted I take something closer to home.”

  “What’s your schedule?”

  “Midnight to sunrise, Monday through Saturday. Five passes from Old Hadassah to the Ben Adayah intersection and back.”

  “Fifteen kilometers a night,” said Daniel.

  “Closer to twenty if you include curves in the road.”

  “A lot of walking, adoni.”

  “For an old fart?”

  “For anyone.”

  Schlesinger laughed dryly.

  “The brass at the Civil Guard thought so too. They worried I’d drop dead and they’d be sued. Tried to talk me into doing half a shift, but I convinced them to give me a tryout.” He patted his midsection. “Three years later and still breathing. Legs like iron. Active metabolism.”

  Daniel nodded appreciatively. “How long does each pass take you?” he asked.

  “Fifty minutes to an hour. Twice I stop to smoke, once a shift I take a leak.”

  “Any other interruptions?”

  “None,” said Schlesinger. “You can set your watch by me.”

  Perhaps, thought Daniel, someone had.

  “What time did you find the girl?”

  “Five forty-seven.”

  “That’s very precise.”

  “I checked my watch,” said Schlesinger, but he looked uneasy.

  “Something the matter?”

  The old man glanced around, as if searching for eaves-droppers. Touched the barrel of the M-1 and gnawed on his mustache.

  “If you’re not certain of the precise time, an estimate will do,” said Daniel.

  “No, no. Five forty-seven. Precisely.”

  Daniel wrote it down. The act seemed to increase Schlesinger’s uneasiness.

  “Actually,” he said, lowering his voice, “that’s the time I called in. Not when I found her.”

  Daniel looked up. “Was there much of a time lapse between the two?”

  Schlesinger avoided Daniel’s eyes.

  “I . . . when I saw her I became sick. Tossed my dinner into the bushes.”

  “An understandable reaction, adoni.”

  The old man ignored the empathy.

  “Point is, I was out of it for a while. Dizzy and faint. Can’t be certain how much time went by before my head cleared.”

  “Did it seem more than a few minutes?”

  “No, but I can’t be certain.”

  “When did you last pass by the spot where you found her?”

  “On the way up from the fourth trip. About an hour before.”

  “Four-thirty?”

  “Approximately.”

  “And you saw nothing.”

  “There was nothing,” said Schlesinger adamantly. “I make it a point to check the gully carefully. It’s a good place for someone to hide.”

  “So,” said Daniel, writing again, “as far as you could te
ll, she was brought there between four-thirty and five forty-seven.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “During that time, did you see or hear any cars?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone on donkey or horseback?”

  “No.”

  “What about from the campus?”

  “The campus was locked—at that hour it’s dead.”

  “Pedestrians?”

  “Not a one. Before I found it . . . her, I heard something from over there, on the desert side.” He swiveled and indicated the eastern ridge. “Scurrying, a rustle of leaves. Lizards, maybe. Or rodents. I ran my light over it. Several times. There was nothing.”

  “How long before you found her did this occur?”

  “Just a few minutes. Then I crossed over. But there was no one there, I assure you.”

  Daniel lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sun and looked out at the wilderness: jagged golden heights striped rust and green by ancient terraces, dropping without warning to the bone-white table of the Jordanian Rift; at vision’s end, the shadowlike ellipse that was the Dead Sea. A leaden wedge of fog hovered over the water, dissolving the horizon.

  He made a note to have some uniforms go over the slope on foot.

  “Nothing there,” repeated Schlesinger. “No doubt they came from the city side. Sheikh Jarrah or the wadi.”

  “They?”

  “Arabs. This is obviously their dirty work.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She was cut up, wasn’t she? The Arab loves a blade.”

  “You said Arabs,” said Daniel. “In the plural. Any reason for that?”

  “Just being logical,” said Schlesinger. “It’s their style, the mob mentality. Gang up on someone defenseless, mutilate them. It was a common thing, before your time—Hebron, Kfar Etzion, the Jaffa Gate riots. Women and children slaughtered like sheep. The goddamned British used to stand by and let it happen. I remember one time—end of ’47—they arrested four of our boys and handed them over to a mob at the Damascus Gate. The Arabs ripped them apart. Like jackals. Nothing left to bury.”

  Schlesinger’s face had grown hawklike, the eyes compressed to slashes, the mouth under the mustache thin-lipped and grim.

  “You want to solve this, son? Knock on doors in East Jerusalem.”

  Daniel closed the pad. “One more thing, adoni.”

  “Yes?”

  “You said you live on French Hill.”

  “That’s correct. Just up the road.”

  “That’s within walking distance of your patrol route.”

  “Correct.”

  “And by your own account, you’re a strong walker. Yet you drive your car and park it on Sderot Churchill.”

  Schlesinger gave him a stony look.

  “Sometimes when I finish,” he said, “I’m not ready to go home. I take a drive.”

  “Anywhere in particular?”

  “Here and there. Anything wrong with that, Pakad?” The old man’s gutturals were harsh with indignation.

  “Nothing at all,” said Daniel, but to himself he thought: Ben adam afor, Carmellah Gadish had gasped, when they’d found her. A gray man. Three barely audible words bubbling from between bloody lips. Then, the loss of consciousness, descent into coma. Death.

  Ben adam afor. A feeble bit of information, perhaps nothing more than delirium. But it was the closest thing they had to evidence and, as such, had taken on an aura of significance. Gray man. They’d spent days on it. An alias or some kind of underworld code? The color of the slasher’s clothing? A sickly complexion? Something characterological?

  Or advanced age?

  He looked at Schlesinger, smiled reassuringly. White hair and mustache. Sky-blue eyes, bordered by a ring of gray. White, light-blue. At night it could all look the same. Gray. It seemed crazy, almost heretical, to think of an old Palmahi doing something like that. And he himself had pointed out to Laufer the discrepancies between this death and the other five. But one never knew. Schlesinger had begun patrolling Scopus shortly after the last Gray Man murder. Thirteen years in one neighborhood, then a sudden move. Perhaps there was some connection, something oblique that he had yet to grasp. He resolved to look into the old man’s background.

  “I fought for this city,” Schlesinger was saying, testily. “Broke my ass. You’d think I’d deserve better than being treated like a suspect.”

  Daniel wondered if his thoughts were that transparent, looked at Schlesinger and decided the old man was being touchy.

  “No one suspects you of anything, adoni,” he soothed. “I was merely succumbing to curiosity—an occupational hazard.”

  Schlesinger scowled and asked if he could go.

  “Certainly, and thank you for your time. I’ll have the officers take you back to your car.”

  “I can walk just fine.”

  “I’m sure you can, but regulations dictate otherwise.”

  He called the uniforms over while the old man muttered about bureaucrats and red tape, had one of them walk him to the blue-and-white, and drew the other aside.

  “Take a look at his car, Amnon. Nothing detailed, just a casual glance. Inform him that the carbine must be kept in the trunk and put it there yourself. When you do, check the trunk.”

  “Anything in particular to look for?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary. Be sure to keep it casual—don’t let on what you’re doing.”

  The officer looked at Schlesinger’s retreating form.

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “We’re being thorough. He lives on French Hill. Escort him to the towers, and radio for two more men. Have them bring a metal detector and the four of you climb down there and do a grid search of the slope on the desert side. Concentrate on the immediate vicinity beyond the ridge—a two-kilometer radius should be sufficient. Look for footprints, blood, human waste, food wrappers.”

  “Anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Exactly. And no loose lips. The brass wants this kept quiet.”

  The officer nodded and left, talked to Schlesinger, and ushered him to the car. The blue-and-white drove off, followed shortly by the technical van. The transport drivers disappeared into the gully with a stretcher and a folded black plastic body bag and reappeared shortly with the bag filled. They slid it into the Abu Kabir van, climbed in, slammed the doors, and sped away. Daniel walked over to Afif and together they removed the barriers and loaded them into the jeep.

  “Salman, what’s the chance of someone sneaking in from the desert in the early morning hours?”

  “Everything’s been quiet,” the Druze said stoically. “Well under control.”

  “What about from Isawiya?”

  “Silent. We’ve got infrared scopes at our stations in the Rift. On the tenders and some of the jeeps as well. All we’ve been picking up are snakes and rabbits. Small band of Bedouins up north of the Ramot, they won’t come down until summer.”

  “What about Ramallah?”

  “Local unrest, but nothing beyond talk.”

  “The Bethlehem sector?”

  “Patrol’s been beefed up since the girl’s funeral. No suspicious movement.”

  The girl. Najwa Sa’id Mussa. Fourteen years old and on her way to market when she’d been caught in the cross fire between a mob of stone-throwing Arabs and two nineteen-year-old soldiers who’d fired back in defense. A bullet to the head had turned her into a heroine, posters emblazoned with her picture slapped to the trunks of the fig trees that grew along the Hebron Road, the graffiti of vengeance marring walls and boulders. A near-riot of a funeral, and then things had gotten quiet again.

  Or had they?

  He thought about another dead girl and wondered.

  By seven forty-five, students had begun drifting toward campus and the hum of traffic filtered down the road. Daniel crossed over and walked down toward the Amelia Catherine Hospital. He’d passed the place numerous times but had never been inside. During the Gray Man investigation, Gavriel
i had taken the task of handling the U.N. people on his own. A good boss. Too bad he’d been careless.

  As Daniel neared the compound he was struck by how out of place it seemed, perched atop Scopus, with its pink stone facade, obelisk bell tower, yawning gargoyles, and steeply pitched tile roofs. An overdressed Victorian dowager camped out in the desert.

  An arched, ivied entry fronted the main building. Embedded in the limestone at the apex was a rectangle of gray granite, carved with a legend in English: AMELIA CATHERINE PILGRIMS’ HOSPICE AND INFIRMARY,ERECTED BY HERMANN BRAUNER,AUGUST 15,1898. An enameled plaque, white with blue letters, had been nailed just below: UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS ASSOCIATION. CO-ADMINISTERED BY THE WORLD ASSEMBLY OF CHURCHES. English and Arabic, not a trace of Hebrew. Climbing white roses, their petals heat-browned, embraced the fluted columns that flanked the arch. The entry led to a large dusty courtyard, shaded at the hub by a spreading live oak as old as the edifice. Circling the trunk of the big tree were spokelike beds of flowers: tulips, poppies, irises, more roses. A high, carved fountain sat in one corner, dry and silent, its marble basin striated with dirt.

  Just inside the entry sat a portly middle-aged Arab watchman on a flimsy plastic chair, sleepy-eyed and inert except for fingers that danced nimbly over a string of amber worry beads. The man wore gray work pants and a gray shirt. Under his armpits were black crescents of sweat. A glass of iced tamarindy rested on the ground, next to one leg of the chair, the ice cubes rounding to slush.

  Daniel’s footsteps raised the watchman’s eyelids, and the Arab’s face became a stew of emotions: curiosity, distrust, the muddled torpor of one whose dreams have been rudely curtailed.

  Daniel greeted him in Arabic and showed him his badge. The watchman frowned, pulled his bulk upright, and reached into his pocket for identification.

  “Not necessary,” said Daniel. “Just your name, please.”

  “Hajab, Zia.” The watchman avoided eye contact and looked out at a distant point over Daniel’s left shoulder. Running a thick hand over crew-cut hair the color and texture of iron filings, he tapped his foot impatiently. His mustache was a charcoal patch of stubble, the lips below, thin and pale. Daniel noticed that his fingers were horned with callus, the fingernails broken and rimmed with grime.

  “Are you from Jerusalem, Mr. Hajab?”