The Butcher's Theater

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “All right,” he said, extricating himself.

  He got out of bed, went into the kitchen, and filled a glass with cold mineral water. When he returned she was sitting up, bare above the waist, her hair pinned up. He handed her the glass and she emptied it in two long drafts.

  “Want more?” he asked.

  “No, this is fine.” She moistened her finger on the rim of the glass, brushed it across her lips.

  “Sure?” He smiled. “There’s a half-gallon bottle in the refrigerator.”

  “Tease!” Fanning wet fingers, she splashed him lightly. “Can I help it if I get thirsty? That’s the way my body works.”

  “Your body works just fine.” He lay down beside her, put his arm around her shoulder. She set the glass on the nightstand, looked at the clock that rested there, and gave a low moan.

  “Oh, no. Three-twenty.”

  “Sorry for waking you.”

  She reached beneath the covers, touched him lightly, and laughed. “All’s well that ends well. Have you been up long?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “Anything the matter?”

  “Just restless,” he said, feeling the tension return. “I’ll get up and let you rest.”

  He began to move away but she touched his wrist and restrained him.

  “No. Stay. We’ve hardly talked since you got that call.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder, made circles with her palm across his hairless chest. They sat without speaking, listening to night sounds—a faint whistle of wind, the hum of the clock, the synchrony of their heartbeats.

  “Tell me about it,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “What you avoided talking about by going to bed at nine.”

  “You don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “It’s horrible, believe me.”

  “Tell me, anyway.”

  He looked at her, saw the will in her eyes. Shrugged and began talking about the murder, reporting dispassionately, professionally. Leaving out as much as he could without patronizing her. She listened without comment, flinching only once, but when he finished her eyes were moist.

  “My God,” she said. “Fifteen.”

  He knew what she was thinking: not much older than Shoshi. He allowed himself to share the thought, and a stab of anxiety pierced him to the core. He defended against it the way he’d been taught to block out pain. Forcing pleasant images into his mind. Fields of wild poppies. The fragrance of orange blossoms.

  “Heroin, sex murder, it doesn’t . . . fit,” Laura was saying. “We’re not supposed to have that kind of thing here.”

  “Well, now we do,” he said angrily. A second later: “Sorry. You’re right. We’re out of our element.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m sure you’ll solve it.”

  “Twenty-four-hour shifts until we do.”

  “It’s just . . .” She groped for words. “When I was growing up, I heard about those kinds of things all the time. It wasn’t that we accepted them, but . . . Oh, I don’t know. Here, it just seems a heresy, Daniel. Demonic.”

  “I understand,” said Daniel, but to himself he thought: That’s exactly the kind of thing I have to avoid. Devils and demons, religious symbolism—the city makes you think that way. It’s a crime, no more, no less. Perpetrated by a human being. Someone sick and fallible . . .

  “What time will you be leaving?” Laura asked.

  “Seven. I have to walk down to the Katamonim. If I’m not back by twelve-thirty, start lunch without me.”

  “The Katamonim? I thought you said she was an Arab.”

  “Daoud thinks she is. We won’t know until we ID her.”

  She unpinned her hair, let it fall to her shoulders.

  “The brass wants it kept quiet,” he said. “Which means meetings away from Headquarters. If we get any leads, we’ll be meeting here, Sunday evening. Don’t prepare anything. If we’re out of soda, I’ll pick some up.”

  “What time in the evening?”

  “Between five and six.”

  “Do you want me to pick up Luanne and Gene?”

  Daniel slapped his forehead. “Oh, no, how could I forget. When are they coming in?”

  “Seven P.M. if the flight’s on schedule.”

  “Perfect timing. So much for grand hospitality.”

  “They’ll be fine, Daniel. They’ll probably be exhausted for the first day or so. I’ve arranged a walking tour of the Old City churches and Bethlehem on Tuesday, and I’ll book them on an all-day trip to Galilee with an emphasis on Nazareth. That should keep them busy for a while.”

  “I wanted it to be personal, the way they treated us.”

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that—they’re here for four weeks. Besides, if anyone should be able to understand, it’s them. Gene probably sees this kind of thing all the time.”

  “Yes,” said Daniel, “I’m sure he does.”

  At four Laura fell back asleep and Daniel drifted into a somnolent state, neither slumber nor arousal, in which dream-images flitted in and out of consciousness with a randomness that was unsettling. At six he got up, sponged off in the bathroom, dressed in a white shirt, khaki trousers, and rubber-soled walking shoes, and forced himself to swallow a glass of orange juice and a cup of instant coffee with milk and sugar. He took his tallit out on the balcony, faced the Old City, and prayed. By seven he was out the door, beeper on his belt, the envelope containing pictures of the dead girl in hand.

  As on every other Shabbat, two of the elevators in the building were shut down, the third set automatically, stopping at every floor, so that religiously observant tenants could ride without having to push buttons—the completion of electric circuits was a violation of the Sabbath. But religious convenience also meant agonizingly slow progress, and when he saw that the car had just reached the ground floor, he took the stairs and bounded down four flights.

  A man was in the lobby, leaning against the mailboxes, smoking. Young, twenty-two or -three, well built and tan, with dark wavy hair and a full clipped beard highlighted with ginger, wearing a white polo shirt with a Fila logo, American designer jeans, brand-new blue-and-white Nike running shoes. On his left wrist was an expensive-looking watch with a gold band; around his neck, a gold Hai charm. An American, thought Daniel. Some kind of playboy, maybe a rich student, but he doesn’t belong here—everyone in the building was religious, no one smoked like that on Shabbat.

  The young man saw him and ground out his cigarette on the marble floor. Inconsiderate, thought Daniel. He was about to ask him what his business was, in English, when the young man began walking toward him, hand extended, saying, in fluent, native Hebrew: “Pakad Sharavi? I’m Avi Cohen. I’ve been assigned to your team. I got the message late last night and thought I’d come over and check in personally.”

  Sophisticated rich kid, thought Daniel, irritated that his intuition had been wrong. North Tel-Avivnik. Politician’s son with plenty of travel experience. Which explained the foreign threads. He took the hand and let go of it quickly, surprised at how much instant dislike he’d built up for the new hire.

  “The briefing was yesterday,” he said.

  “Yes, I know,” said Cohen, matter-of-factly, without apology. “I was moving into a new flat. No phone. Tat Nitzav Laufer sent a messenger over but he got lost.”

  A smile, full of boyish charm. No doubt it had worked wonders with Asher Davidoff’s blonde. A samal connected to the deputy commander—what was a rich kid like this doing as a policeman?

  Daniel walked toward the door.

  “I’m ready, now,” said Cohen, tagging along.

  “Ready for what?”

  “My assignment. Tat Nitzav Laufer told me it’s a heavy case.”

  “Did he?”

  “Sex cutting, no motive, no suspect—”

  “Do you and Tat Nitzav Laufer confer regularly?”

  “No,” said Cohen, flustered. “He . . . my father—�
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  “Never mind,” said Daniel, then remembered that the kid’s father had died recently, and softened his tone.

  “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

  “Did you know him?” asked Cohen, surprised.

  “Just by reputation.”

  “He was a tough guy, a real ball-breaker.” Cohen uttered it automatically, without emotion, as if it were a psalm that he’d recited hundreds of times before. Daniel felt his hostility toward the new hire rise again. Pushing the door open, he let it swing back for Cohen to catch and stepped out into the sunlight. There was an unfamiliar car in the parking lot. A red BMW 330i.

  “My assignment, Pakad?”

  “Your assignment is to be present for all meetings at precisely the time they’re called.”

  “I told you, my flat—”

  “I’m not interested in excuses, only results.”

  Cohen’s eyebrows lowered. His icy blue eyes clouded with anger.

  “Is that understood, Samal Cohen?”

  “Yes, Pakad.” The right thing to say, but with a hint of arrogance in the tone. Daniel let it pass.

  “You’ll be assigned to Mefakeah Nahum Shmeltzer. Call him at eight tomorrow morning and do what he tells you to do. In the meantime, there are some files I want you to go through. At National Headquarters—the computer boys are getting them ready.” He reached into the envelope, drew out a photo, and handed it to Cohen. “Go through each file and see if you can find a match with this one. Don’t look only for exact matches—take into account that she may have changed her hair style or aged a bit since the file was opened. If there’s any sort of resemblance, set it aside. Keep meticulous records, and when in doubt, ask questions. Got it?”

  “Yes.” Cohen looked at the picture and said, “Young.”

  “A very astute observation,” said Daniel. Turning his back, he walked away.

  He covered the three-kilometer walk quickly, with little regard for his surroundings, walking southwest, then west on Yehuda HaNasi, where he entered the Katamonim. The neighborhood started deteriorating when he came to Katamon Eight. Some evidence of renewal was visible: a newly painted building here, a freshly planted tree there. The government had been pushing it until the recession hit. But for the most part it was as he remembered it: curbless streets cracked and litter-strewn; what little grass there was, brown and dry. Laundry billowed from the rust-streaked balconies of decaying cinder-block buildings, the bunkerlike construction harking back to pre-’67 days, when south Jerusalem faced Jordanian guns, the sudden, murderous sniping attributed by the Arabs to a soldier “gone berserk.”

  Berserk marksmen. Lots of shootings. Bitter jokes had arisen: The psychiatric wards of Amman had been emptied in order to staff Hussein’s army.

  The change of borders in ’67 had brought about a shift in character in other poor districts—Yemin Moshe with its cobbled alleys and artists’ studios, so inflated now that only foreigners could afford it; even Musrara had begun looking a little better—but the lower Katamonim remained a living monument to urban blight.

  During his rookie days, he’d driven patrol here, and though his own origins had been anything but affluent, the experience had depressed him. Prefab buildings knocked up hastily for tides of Jewish immigrants from North Africa, strung together like railroad cars and sectioned into dreary one-hundred-square-meter flats that seemed incurably plagued with mildew and rot. Tiny windows built for safety but now unnecessary and oppressive. Rutted streets, empty fields used for garbage dumps. The flats crammed with angry people, boiling in the summer, clammy and cold in the winter. Fathers unemployed and losing face, the wives easy targets for tirades and beatings, the kids running wild in the streets. A recipe for crime—just add opportunity.

  The pooshtakim had hated him. To them, the Yemenites were an affront, poorer than anyone, different-looking, regarded as primitives and outsiders. Smiling fools—you could beat them and they’d smile. But those smiles reflected an unerring sense of faith and optimism that had enabled the Yemenites to climb up the economic ladder with relative haste. And the fact that their crime rate was low was a slap in the face to the poverty excuse.

  Where else could that lead but to scapegoating? He’d been called Blackie more times than he could count, ridiculed and ignored and forced to come down hard on defiant punks. A hell of an initiation. He’d endured it, gradually ingratiated himself with some of them, and done his job. But though it had been his idea to work there in the first place, he’d welcomed the completion of his assignment.

  Now he was back, on a Shabbat, no less, embarking on an outing that was a long shot at best.

  On the surface, coming down here did have a certain logic to it. The girl was poor and Oriental, maybe a street girl. Though other neighborhoods bred that type, too, Eight and Nine were the right places to start.

  But he admitted to himself that a good part of it was symbolic—setting a good example by showing the others that a pakad was still willing to work the streets. And laying to rest any suspicions that a religious pakad would use Shabbat as an excuse to loaf.

  He despised the idea of disrupting the Sabbath, resented the break in routine that separated him from family and ritual. Few cases made that kind of demand on him, but this one was different. Although the dead girl was beyond help, if a madman was at work, he wouldn’t stop at one. And the saving of a life overrode Shabbat.

  Still, he did what he could to minimize the violation—wearing the beeper but carrying no money or weapon, walking instead of driving, using his memory rather than pen and paper to record his observations. Doing his best to think of spiritual things during the empty moments that constituted so much of a detective’s working life.

  An elderly Moroccan couple approached him, on their way to synagogue, the husband wearing an outsized embroidered kipah, mouthing psalms, walking several paces ahead of his wife. In Eight and Nine, only the old ones remained observant.

  “Shabbat shalom,” he greeted them and showed them the picture.

  The man apologized for not having his glasses, said he couldn’t see a thing. The woman looked at it, shook her head, and said, “No. What happened? Is she lost?”

  “In a way,” said Daniel, thanking them and moving on.

  The scene repeated itself a score of times. On Rehov San Martin, at the southern tip of Nine, he encountered a group of muscular, swarthy young men playing soccer in a field. Waiting until a goal had been scored, he approached them. They passed the photo around, made lewd comments, and giving it back to him, resumed their game.

  He continued on until eleven, eating a late breakfast of shrugs, ignorance, and bad jokes, feeling like a rookie again. Deciding that he’d been stupid to waste his time and abandon his family in the name of symbolism, he began the return trip in a foul mood.

  On his way out of Eight, he passed a kiosk that had been closed when he’d entered the district, a makeshift stand where children stood in line for ice cream and candy bars. Approaching, he noticed that a particularly sickening-looking blue ice seemed to be the favorite.

  The proprietor was a squat Turk in his fifties, with blackrimmed eyeglasses, bad teeth, and a three-day growth of beard. His shirt was sweat-soaked and he smelled of confection. When he saw Daniel’s kipah, he frowned.

  “No Shabbat credit. Cash only.”

  Daniel showed him his ID, removed the photo from the envelope.

  “Aha, police. They force a religious one to work today?”

  “Have you seen this girl?”

  The man took a look, said casually, “Her? Sure. She’s an Arab, used to work as a maid at the monks’ place in the Old City.”

  “Which monks’ place?”

  “The one near the New Gate.”

  “Saint Saviour’s?”

  “Yeah.” The Turk peered closely at the photo, turned serious. “What’s the matter with her? Is she—”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “No idea. Only reason I remember her at all i
s that she was good-looking.” Another downward glance: “Someone got her, right?”

  Daniel took the picture away from him. “Your name, please, adoni.”

  “Sabhan, Eli, but I don’t want to get involved in this, okay?”

  Two little girls in T-shirts and flowered pants came up to the counter and asked for blue ice bars. Daniel stepped aside and allowed Sabhan to complete the transaction. After the Turk had pocketed the money, he came forward again and asked, “What were you doing at the Saint Saviour’s monastery, Adon Sabhan?”

  The Turk waved his hand around the interior of the kiosk and gave a disgusted look.

  “This is not my career. I used to have a real business until the fucking government taxed me out of it. Painting and plastering. I contracted to paint the monks’ infirmary and finished two walls before some Arabs underbid me and the so-called holy men kicked me off the job. All those brown-robes—fucking anti-Semites.”

  “What do you know about the girl?”

  “Nothing. I just saw her. Scrubbing the floor.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Let’s see—it was before I went bust, which would be about two weeks.”

  Two weeks, thought Daniel. Poor guy’s just gone under. Which could explain all the anger.

  “Did you ever see her with anyone else, Adon Sabhan?”

  “Just her mop and pail.” Sabhan wiped his face with his hand, leaned in, and said conspiratorially: “Ten to one, one of the brown-robes did her in. She was raped, wasn’t she?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “A guy has needs, you know? It’s not normal, the way they live—no sex, the only women in sight a few dried-up nuns. That’s got to do something to your mind, right? Young piece like that comes around, no bra, shaking like jelly, squatting down, someone gets heated up and boom, right?”

  “Did you ever observe any conflict between her and the monks?”

  Sabhan shook his head.

  “What about between her and anyone else?”

  “Nah, I was busy painting,” said Sabhan, “my face to the wall. But take my word for it, that’s what happened.”

  Daniel asked him a few more questions, got nothing more, and examined the Turk’s business license. On it was listed a Katamon Two home address. He committed it to memory and left the kiosk, heart pounding. Quickening his pace to a jog, he retraced his path but turned east onto Ben Zakai, then northeast, making his way up toward the Old City.