Pattern crimes

by William Bayer

  "Well?"

  "What?"

  "The meaning of this visit please."

  "Must it have a meaning, father?"

  "Usually you drop by. Tonight you phoned."

  "To be certain you'd be here."

  "And where should I go?"

  "Well, father, I'm sure you go out sometimes. At least I hope you do."

  Avraham did not respond. He was like that lately, listening but refusing to acknowledge, gazing at David with curiosity, waiting. The old analyst's trick-waiting the patient out.

  "It just occurred to me how odd it is you even have a telephone." Still no response. "That suggests a little less renunciation than you'd have us all believe."

  "And who is this 'us' you speak of, David?"

  "Those of us who know you."

  "I don't recall ever using the word renounce." This was true-he had simply stated that he was going to give up his profession and devote the rest of his life to study. There was even doubt among his friends that he had actually turned religious. Many thought his study of Kabbalah was a scholarly pursuit that had nothing to do with belief.

  "Well?"

  "Why am I here? I need help."

  Avraham smiled. "A brave reply."

  "I have a case. Multiple homicides. The most difficult I've ever had." Avraham nodded, encouraging him. He was good at that, getting a person to talk.

  As David began then to describe the killings, he was surprised at his own clarity. Surprised because, whenever he pondered them, which now was always, he found a pattern that tied him up in knots.

  The first three victims had suggested a vague but graspable symmetry-sex crimes committed by a classic serial murderer. An apparently well-adjusted American nun; a transvestite Arab street hustler; a prostitute who, in fact, had been a sad lost child of oriental Israel.

  But that very morning a fourth victim had turned up, and now the symmetry was broken: Yaakov Schneiderman, bachelor, fifty years old, fine military record, loyal reservist, owned his own truck, specialized in local hauling around Jerusalem. His body found by the side of the road near the UN House on the Hill of Evil Counsel. Same killing method, same marks, same blanket, same signs of abuse after death, but now suddenly nothing fit.

  Two men, two women; one Arab, one Christian, and two Jews; two sexual people, two not-sexual; three young, one middle-aged. A pattern yes, but a pattern of technique, not one that suggested a man coherently disturbed. What was in this killer's mind? Did these strange marks he left convey a message? Did he simply slay at random out of bloodlust, compulsion, some irresistible need to kill and mark?

  Oh yes, father, in case you're about to ask, we have employed the latest in investigative techniques. Detailed autopsies. Checks for tooth marks. Fingerprints. Debris beneath the victims' nails. Fibers. Tire tracks. Possible eye-witness sightings at the dumping sites. Investigations into the victims' pasts. Research into the meaning of the marks…

  Avraham's eyes did not leave his-clearly he grasped everything. In the end he nodded and summed it up. "You have a psychological case. You bring it to me because I am a psychologist."

  "I need criteria, father. A profile of this man. What does he think? What's he like? So we are convening experts. I'd like you to be on the panel."

  "Who have you got?"

  David mentioned some of the names, the criminologists Shimon Sanders and Professor Haftel from the University of Haifa, various experts too on political extremism, sociology, and psychological stress. "I believe you could help. You've helped me understand criminal behavior before. The criminal's 'calling card.' The compulsion to confess."

  Avraham was silent. Finally when he spoke it was not in response to David's request.

  "Tell me, please, why do you do all this?"

  David winced; he had heard it all before. How could the son of a Disraeli Street psychoanalyst and a French-Hebrew literary translator choose a career with the lowliest arm of government, the police?

  "…a life of risk, terrible hours, ridicule, lousy pay. Do you pride yourself on that, David, on being a dustman, a man who picks off the vermin from our fine Israeli streets?"

  "No, I don't pride myself on it."

  Avraham's glasses glinted as he shook his head. "Crimes, crimes. You may solve a few, but do you ever cure the underlying ills?"

  "That isn't why I do it."

  "Why then? I want to understand."

  "The same reason you sit here and study. Because I like it. It's my work."

  Avraham turned away. His gaze was now on the family photographs. On the one of beautiful serious Gideon, David knew. Gideon -sensitive warrior-poet, fighter-pilot, family prince.

  "Anyway, I don't think that what we do is all that different," David said. "Detectives and psychoanalysts-we work to uncover the truth and render the demons harmless."

  "Harmless? That's your delusion. Anyway, I'm no longer a psychoanalyst."

  All at once David was irritated, tired of their duel. It had turned sour, and he felt it was his father's fault. "Look," he said, "will you be on my panel or not?"

  Avraham turned back to him, suddenly looking tired and old. His voice became a meager whisper: "I need help too."

  Help! Dr. Bar-Lev would ask his policeman son for help! Unprecedented, but still there was something thrilling about this grand reversal of their roles.

  "My old papers. Suddenly some are missing." Avraham shook his head, perplexed. "The files of my practice, some going back many years. I had them stored at Blumenthal's, in the garage behind his house. And then just a few days ago he phoned to tell me someone had broken in. I went over to see and yes the lock was broken off the door, my papers scattered everywhere as if someone had gone through them very fast. I have the impression some are missing. I'm sure of it, in fact. But I don't understand why. They'd be of no interest to anyone. I should have burned them. I thought of it but didn't." Avraham shrugged. "Now I wish I had…"

  A curious story, David thought, for he had listened to it as a detective. And perhaps it was not really the story that was so curious as the way his father had told it-in the classic manner of a victim reluctant to file a complaint.

  "Did Dr. Blumenthal report the break-in?"

  "Of course."

  "And the police came?"

  Avraham nodded impatiently. "The point is there was nothing valuable to steal."

  "You insist your files were of no interest?"

  "None at all."

  "Yet some were taken, so then they were of interest." Avraham did not react. "My feeling, father, is that very few people would take that kind of stuff. Only two thoughts come to mind: a former patient looking to clean up his past, or a prospective blackmailer searching for information he can sell. If you want me to help you'll have to be specific. Make an inventory, determine exactly what is missing, and then I'll look into it. How's that?"

  Avraham's eyes turned cagey. "I have a feeling you're very good at what you do."

  "Thank you. I try to be."

  "So, anything else?" Avraham stood up to end the audience. "Yes, I'll come and try to analyze your killer. Tell me where and when. Perhaps it will even do me good. To get back to that kind of work for a couple of hours-yes, I will do it. Of course…"

  Rafi Shahar turned Pattern Crimes into an SIT, a Special Investigating Team. All other cases were to be temporarily shelved. Focus now was on the solution of the killings. Five new detectives were added, including Moshe Liederman, who had approached David privately and begged to be allowed to join.

  It was interesting, David thought, the way each of them had his favorite victim. Uri liked Yaakov Schneiderman, perhaps because they were both large physical men. Dov was extremely fond of Susan Mills, and Micha identified in some strange way with Hail Ghemaiem. But no one cared for Ora Goshen except Liederman and himself.

  David had asked for a large bulletin board. Uri brought in cork panels and nailed them to the unit room wall. Photos of the victims were pinned up, and a large map showing the locati
ons of the dumping sites. Detectives came in, stared at these displays, then went out again. Rebecca Marcus, head always covered, disposition always sweet, manned the continually ringing phones, while David, with Dov as deputy, supervised from his office in the back. Everyone worked "skeleton hours," grueling duty, twelve on twelve off. And no one came up with anything. Yet all sensed the homicides would go on.

  Certain facts were established:

  The most important was the plate number of the car, recalled under hypnosis by Ora's friends. A light tan Renault stolen from a lot in Independence Park. The owner had a solid alibi. Much excitement when finally the car was found, parked in Gonen on a residential street. The forensic specialists swarmed over it, but in the end declared it immaculate. Every print wiped clean. A professional job. Which suggested to David a little less passion and a far cooler approach than the vicious mutilations had implied.

  Nothing new on Halil. His friend, Ali Saad, continued to make havoc with Micha's IdentiKit. Meantime, Susan Mills's Israeli friends all agreed she'd been a modern but not a reckless nun.

  Dov uncovered more: that she'd been deeply disturbed by the hatred that gripped the Holy Land, a woman who had longed for peace and had believed in universal brotherhood. Thus a sucker, he theorized, for Palestinian tales of woe. Perhaps she'd befriended one and he had killed her-Dov wanted to follow this notion up. David set him loose to interview everyone she'd met, but Dov's search for an "Arab friend" yielded no result.

  Schneiderman, of all the victims, presented the greatest difficulties. Break Schneiderman, they told each other, and you begin to solve the case. This was not a man who would be easily overpowered. Burly, strong, accustomed to heavy physical work, brash in his dealings, kind but curt, described by his brother and several friends as "an honest, no bullshit guy." No evidence of homosexuality. No weakness to attract a predator. No signs in his modest Talpiyot flat of forced entry or a struggle. A homely man; one might even describe him as ugly. Which left two questions: How could the killer, if unknown to him, have lured him into a position where he could cut his throat, and what about Schneiderman could have attracted the killer anyway?

  As for the old army blankets thrown over the mutilated bodies, investigation revealed these were standard issue, available by the ten thousand in flea markets throughout Israel.

  Ten P.M. Hananya Street, one of the sweet-smelling streets of the German Colony near the big public swimming pool off Emeq Refaim. A cool Thursday evening the first week of April. The season of icy nights was done. Passover was coming and, soon after that, Easter. Jerusalem was filling with tourists and pilgrims, and flowing with rumors about a "slasher" who had stymied the police.

  David, Dov, and Shoshana Nahon were waiting in an unmarked police Subaru in front of Jacob Gutman's home.

  "It would not be wonderful if we got spotted here." Dov had been opposed to the foray. It would not do for the commander of an important SIT to be observed staking out a man suspected of brokering stolen Torah scrolls.

  But Shoshana had been adamant. She'd been watching Gutman for a week. Now the case belonged to her, her first real case, and she was certain Gutman was behind the thefts. She didn't want to share the arrest with an undercover officer, and if David wouldn't let her have this chance then she might as well go back into the army-at least there a young person could prove what she could do.

  So now they were waiting, Shoshana coiled with tension, chain-smoking in the back seat while Dov munched potato chips in front. He and David passed the time tossing around ideas about Schneiderman and how he could be made to fit the pattern of their case.

  "Suppose Yaakov had knowledge," Dov said. "He'd seen something, suspected who the killer was. He tried to blackmail him and the killer said okay. Then, when they met to make the deal, the killer sandbagged him and did him up like another victim in the series."

  "You're nuts!" Shoshana was puffing furiously. "Gutman's in there. He's a pushover. Why the hell are we sitting around?"

  "Don't get impatient, sweetie. It's not too smart to go into apartments until you're sure how many people are inside." Suddenly Dov turned around and grabbed her cigarette out of her mouth.

  "David!"

  "Okay. Enough. Let's get this over with." Tired of their bickering he was relieved to get out of the car.

  Silence on the street. No one around. A single window lit in the first floor apartment. Jacob Gutman lived there, and it was there, Shoshana was convinced, that he kept his store of stolen goods.

  She'd done a thorough job, talked to his neighbors, identified him as a private dealer in rare Judaica. An old man, German born, Gutman had immigrated to Palestine in the thirties. He'd joined the Jewish Brigade, later served in the Palmach. Distinguished himself in the '48 war, lost his wife in 1960 and his only daughter in an automobile accident in 1972.

  Shoshana had photographed him surreptitiously, showed her pictures to Aziz Mansour, gotten a positive ID that this was the man who'd sold him the Torah crowns. She'd tracked him through the city, found no evidence he had an outside stash. Assumption: The stolen scrolls were stored in his apartment. Based on proof which she had submitted that several of the crowns had come off of stolen scrolls, a judge had issued her a warrant for a search.

  In the entrance hall of the subdivided house David read the tenant roster: Rosenfeld, M.; Rosenfeld, E.; Cohen, L.; Levi, L.; Gutman, J. A purely German building. He looked at Shoshana and nodded toward Gutman's buzzer. "Your bust," he told her. "Your case. You ring."

  She nodded, rang, then rang again. No answer, but half a minute later an elderly man in a frayed gray bathrobe came to the glass door and peered out.

  Shoshana held her ID against the glass. "Police." Gutman cupped his ear. He was bald on top with tufts of unkempt hair protruding from the sides of his head. "Police." The second time she shouted. The old man's eyes darted as he took in the three of them, then he brought his finger to his lips, opened the door, and stepped into the hall.

  "What? What?"

  Shoshana showed her warrant. David watched Gutman carefully. He was pale, poorly shaven, and he looked scared. But there was also in his manner a subtle hint of relief. David had seen this before: the reaction of a man who, having engaged in illegal activity for years, is finally relieved to be rid of his fear of being caught.

  "So, in Israel now the police come in the middle of the night?" Gutman's eyes gleamed with righteous anger. "To humiliate an elderly person before his neighbors? Are these the approved tactics of officials in our Jewish State?" Suddenly he presented his wrists. "You have manacles of course? And instruments of torment? No! But you must extract my confession. You will use pain as a lever. Yes? Am I right? Oh, the pain! Oh! Oh!"

  He muttered something about "storm troopers" as he led them back into his apartment. But when they ignored him and Shoshana began her search, he seemed to realize the game was up. "I'm a Jew like the three of you. I fought in the War of Independence. Why pick on me? Why don't you go after bad guys? Child-murdering Arab terrorists?"

  He didn't even bother to turn when Shoshana announced her find. "Scrolls. A closet full of them. Other stuff too. Menorahs, pointers, candlesticks."

  "So," Dov asked, "are you the broker or the thief?"

  "The menorahs are all legal. I have proof!"

  "Sure. They'd be recognized. But scrolls all look alike. Did you organize the robberies or do you just fence the loot? Come on, talk!" Gutman stared at the floor. "You'll talk, old man. In time."

  Shoshana glowed. Her first bust and she'd hit gold. This case would make the papers: Stolen Torahs were much better than diamonds and furs.

  But then a strange thing happened. For the first time since they'd come into the apartment Jacob Gutman turned to David and stared into his face. "I know who you are," he said. "You're David, aren't you?" He smiled, then slowly began to nod. "Sure, you're David. That's who you are. You're David. David Bar-Lev…"

  "He kept staring at me, all the way back to the Compound. I asked him se
veral times how he knew me but he wouldn't say. He just kept smiling and nodding as if I were someone he'd run into unexpectedly, someone meaningful in his past whom he hadn't seen in years."

  "No idea who he is?" David, naked, was lying on his back. Anna, wearing just a T-shirt, sat astride him, knees gripping his flanks, sensuously massaging around his neck.

  "Just this old crook, that's all I know. Claims to be religious, but then he brokers stolen Torahs."

  "Maybe you arrested him once."

  "I'd remember." He groaned with pleasure. She had powerful Russian hands and an instinctive ability to locate knots of tension and smooth them away.

  "Maybe you knew him in another context. Now he's older, looks different, and you can't remember because he doesn't fit."

  "This is a man I'd remember. I'd remember his eyes."

  "So how does he know you?"

  He blinked. "Can't figure it out."

  He twisted beneath her pressure. She bent down to kiss his chest. "Well," she said, "maybe he knew you as a child."

  Yes, that could fit with his smile. Gutman had smiled at him the way one smiles at someone one hasn't seen since he was small.

  "He could have known my parents." David shook his head. "What a strange thing. I'm glad I didn't know before."

  He reached up, slipped his hands beneath her shirt, ran his fingers along her sides. She was a lean girl; he could feel her ribs, ripples beneath her flesh. When he grazed her breasts she trembled slightly, rose, then sat down again directly on his sex.

  After they made love, they lay together beneath the covers, clothes scattered where they'd tossed them. Jerusalem hung like a backdrop framed by the window, illuminated towers, domes, and walls dark amber against a deep black velvet sky.

  "…Gideon was always the handsome one. Golden youth, golden man. He had beautiful features. Not like mine. Beside him I looked rough."