Bethlehem Road Murder

by Batya Gur

  “How many days?” inquired Michael, who was still standing by the leather love seat as Yair regarded a large black-and-white photograph hanging over the television set. Inside the thin, gilded frame was a little boy, with his front teeth missing and his expression very solemn, clasping a medal in both his hands. “Is this you?” Yair asked, and moved closer to the picture.

  “Yes, at the age of six,” said Yoram Beinisch. He seemed relieved that he didn’t have to answer Michael’s questions for the moment. “I won a medal in an arithmetic competition, first place among three schools,” he explained with a smile. “They thought I was . . . that I had a talent for math, my parents . . .” He waved lazily at the picture. “They like to reminisce,” he said, and grinned, revealing small, white front teeth.

  “How many days ago?” Michael repeated the question with demonstrable politeness.

  “I can’t remember exactly. Two or three,” replied Yoram Beinisch.

  “How come,” wondered Yair without taking his eyes off the picture, “when I spoke to you yesterday or the day before—when was it?—there was nothing wrong with your foot, and you weren’t limping?”

  Yoram Beinisch looked as though he had lost his confidence and was angry at himself for having fallen into a trap. “So I don’t remember,” he said crossly. “I told you—it’s nothing. Yesterday and the day before it didn’t hurt.”

  “Excuse me,” said Yair, “but there seem to be tooth marks there, and that’s not nothing and a doctor should see it because you might need a tetanus shot.”

  “Or even a rabies shot,” added Michael in a tone of fatherly concern.

  “Where’s the third one? Your colleague?” asked Yoram Beinisch with obvious irritation. “How long does it take him to lock your car?”

  “This girl, Nessia,” said Michael from behind the love seat, “did you know her?”

  “The little girl?” wondered Yoram Beinisch. “No, why should I? I’ve just seen her around. She was out in the street all the time, with her dog . . .”

  “Have you ever spoken to her?” asked Michael.

  “No, never,” said Yoram Beinisch with slight disgust, and he angrily added: “But maybe you’ll go ahead and tell me what you’re looking for. There wasn’t a moment’s quiet here all day and my mother, she has . . . She isn’t feeling so well. First the police and then that journalist that didn’t give us—”

  “What journalist?” demanded Michael sharply.

  “I can’t remember her name,” said Yoram Beinisch, and his eyes turned to the door to the room. “That girl . . . Not very impressive . . . Not one you’d remember, wearing jeans and a big shirt, with curls, like . . .” He touched his yellow hair, which was darkened by dampness.

  “Orly Shushan,” said Yair.

  “Could be.” Yoram Beinisch grimaced. “I think that’s what she’s called.”

  “Zahara Bashari’s best friend,” noted Yair.

  “What do I know?” muttered Yoram Beinisch. “She drove us crazy.”

  “What did she want to know?” asked Michael.

  “Whether I knew . . .” With his head he gestured toward the outside wall of the living room and the house it concealed, as if he didn’t want to mention Zahara’s name.

  “Whether you knew Zahara Bashari?” asked Michael.

  Yoram Beinisch nodded.

  “And did you know her?” Michael asked, and crossed his arms.

  “I already told him,” said Yoram Beinisch, nodding at Yair. “She wanted to know whether we played together when we were little, and whether I noticed how beautiful she was, and how come a fellow like me and a girl like her didn’t—”

  “I asked you something,” interrupted Michael.

  Yoram Beinisch sighed irately. “I already told him. Yesterday I told him. Don’t you two speak to each other? I never spoke a word to her. Her mother and my mother . . . Our parents . . .” He tapped the sides of his trousers as if he had nothing more to say.

  “But when you were little you played together,” Yair stated, and turned and sat down at the edge of the sofa, near the love seat.

  Yoram Beinisch paled. “I don’t remember anything like that,” he said in a shaky voice. “My mother would have killed me. I don’t think I even . . . I was bigger than her. I wasn’t interested in babies.”

  From the hall came the sound of heavy footsteps, and after a moment Yoram Beinisch’s father stood at the entrance to the living room, smoothing thin strands of whitish-red hair over his skull. “Who? Who played together?” he asked, and felt his cheek as if smoothing out wrinkles after deep sleep.

  “Nothing. It’s nothing, Daddy,” said his son dismissively.

  “Are you from the police?” Efraim Beinisch asked Michael. “Wasn’t it you I spoke to on the day they found Zahara Bashari?”

  “Yes,” confirmed Michael, “and you told me that Yoram hadn’t left the house last Monday, in the evening. You said he was home by six and didn’t go out.”

  “Right. That’s the way it was,” said Efraim Beinisch. “So what is it now?”

  “It’s because of the little girl,” explained his son.

  “As a matter of fact, what’s happened to her?” inquired Efraim Beinisch.

  “They found her. She’s alive,” said Yoram Beinisch quickly.

  “Thank God,” said the father. “Really, these children, until they grow up you could lose your mind. What happened? Did she run away from home?”

  Yair looked at him in surprise. “Run away from home? Someone kidnapped her and beat her nearly to death.”

  “What are you saying?!” said Efraim Beinisch in alarm. “Who kidnapped her? You don’t know?” He clicked his tongue. “They don’t let you live in peace and quiet here. But how can we help you now?”

  “We have a few questions for your son,” said Michael pleasantly. “We’ve found the girl, but she’s unconscious. She can’t tell us anything.”

  Efraim Beinisch’s face clouded. “We can’t help you,” he said hesitantly, and looked at his son. “We’ve been busy. My son’s fiancée arrived here from the United States a few days ago, and she’s not just some . . .” Again he looked at his son, and this time his glance was wary. “She’s a very special girl, a princess. Isn’t she, Yoram?”

  “Let them be, Daddy. It doesn’t interest them,” said his son impatiently. “Aren’t you making yourself some coffee?”

  Michael looked hard at the face of the father, whose smile faded, and for a moment it seemed as though he was looking at his son fearfully. Then he said: “Yes. Yes, can I make some for you?”

  “No thanks,” said Yoram Beinisch. “We’ve already had.”

  “And the journalist, she didn’t ask about the little girl, about Nessia?” asked Michael, and Efraim Beinisch, who was still within earshot, stopped near the doorway and paused there a moment before he moved off and left the room.

  “About the little girl? Sure she asked about the girl, but what could I tell her? I don’t know that little girl. I don’t know anyone here. We’re not . . . Our family isn’t . . . We don’t have relations with . . .” His hand described an arc that indicated the street.

  For a moment Michael was sorry that Balilty had left. “We know for certain that you knew Zahara Bashari quite well,” he said suddenly, adopting one of Balilty’s traps for his own use.

  “That’s not true,” protested Yoram Beinisch loudly, and as if he had scared himself he immediately dropped his voice to a whisper. “I’m telling you, our parents aren’t on speaking . . . I’ve never spoken to her in my life . . . My mother, if I would even speak to”—again his arm indicated the other side of the wall—“anyone from that family, and espe cially their daughter, she would simply have killed me.” He looked at Yair and said: “It’s not that I’m afraid of my mother, but I don’t want to break her heart. I’m her only child, and that family has ruined her life.”

  “There are kids who are, hmmm, curious, and if they get hold of someone or something, they won’t let go
,” said Michael as if musing to himself.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Yoram Beinisch, and he stuck his fingers into the space between the cushions on the love seat.

  “That little girl, Nessia. It could be said that she was a nosy child, a little spy, right?” said Michael in a tone of casual complicity.

  “How should I know?” protested Yoram Beinisch.

  “You’ve lived in the United States,” said Michael.

  “Half a year, in New York, when I was sent there by the company,” Yoram Beinisch explained in the tone of one who knows his own worth, and brought his hand back to his side. “I’m in high-tech, and my fiancée . . . my girlfriend, she’s also from New York. She arrived here a few days ago. We’re getting married in December. She’s also in high-tech, that’s how we met, but she doesn’t really need to work because her family—” The front door slammed and he stopped talking and stood up with a start. “Is that your colleague?” he asked, annoyed, but it was his mother who stood in the doorway. Dressed in a pale, straight skirt and a greenish silk blouse, she stood there, a thin jacket draped over her shoulders and her hair gathered in a bun, and even though her neck was bare she fingered an invisible string of beads around it.

  “What’s this, Yoram?” she asked in alarm. “Are you home? Because your car isn’t . . . I thought you’d gone out.”

  “The car isn’t in the carport?” he asked in a panic. He ran to the front door and rushed outside and after a moment came back. “The car isn’t there!” he shouted, and looked at Michael accusingly.

  “Maybe you forgot to lock it?” suggested Sergeant Yair kindly, and Michael saw how Clara Beinisch’s eyes, blue like her son’s, were examining the two of them, and how her hand was climbing from her neck to the mole beside her small nose. In suspicious alarm, she looked at Michael’s face.

  “Where’s my car?” demanded Yoram Beinisch loudly and squeakily.

  “I told you,” explained Yair pleasantly. He turned to Clara Beinisch and said to her: “He came inside with us a little while ago and forgot to lock it.”

  “They’ve taken it. They’ve taken my car. The police have stolen my car!” complained Yoram Beinisch to his mother, his face red.

  The pretty, severe face of Clara Beinisch changed its expression from alarm to anger. “It’s been two days that you haven’t been giving us a moment’s rest,” she protested. “You come and go, make a mess here, and now you’re taking Yoram’s car away? It’s a brand-new car. He got it from his job . . .”

  “They’ll find it, for sure,” consoled Yair, “and if not, there’s the insurance or—”

  “Insurance?!” screamed Yoram Beinisch. “You’ve stolen my car—it’s obvious!”

  “Mrs. Beinisch,” said Michael patiently, “perhaps you’ll tell me where your son was last night?”

  Clara Beinisch ran her hand over her big bun of hair, felt her neck and looked at her son. “Why don’t you ask him yourselves?” she wondered. “Why should you ask me? Here he is. Ask him.”

  Her son opened his mouth to say something, but Sergeant Yair’s hand was already moving toward him quickly and grasped his arm: “You keep quiet now, you hear?”

  “What’s going on here? How can you talk that way?” said Clara Beinisch in astonishment. “He was at home.”

  “All evening?”

  “All evening. Of course all evening,” she said, and her voice rose too. “What kind of . . . We were tired from the trip. In the morning we took Michelle to her relatives at the kibbutz and in the evening we watched television, his father and I and him, and then we went to sleep.”

  “Michelle is the fiancée?”

  “Yoram and Michelle are getting married in December,” said Clara Beinisch proudly. “The wedding will be in New York.”

  “When did you go to bed?” Michael asked, and saw how Yoram Beinisch’s eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t see why you . . . At about ten,” and Clara Beinisch’s Hungarian accent became more pronounced the more she spoke. “We always eat early and go to bed early. There wasn’t anything to watch on television, nothing,” she said. “There are a million channels and nothing to see. I also wasn’t feeling so well.”

  “Did Yoram also go to bed at ten?” inquired Michael.

  “Yoram’s a big boy,” his mother said, and looked warily at her son. “You don’t tell a man of twenty-three when to go to bed. Maybe he stayed up to watch a video or something.”

  “But he didn’t leave the house,” affirmed Michael.

  “He didn’t go out,” promised the mother.

  “Mrs. Beinisch,” said Michael, indicating the armchair, “perhaps you’ll sit down a minute.” He waited until she straightened the hem of her narrow skirt and arranged her light jacket on the back of the armchair and sat down, her legs angled to one side. “Do you sleep well at night?” he asked.

  She looked at her son as if considering what to say, but his face was frozen and his fists clenched.

  “Not all that well,” she finally said. “I haven’t been feeling so well . . .”

  “So you take sleeping pills?”

  “Not every day,” she said cautiously. “Only sometimes—once every two days, one pill.” She fingered her neck, and suddenly she added in alarm, “But with a doctor. A doctor gives it to me. A very good pill, Bondormine. You sleep well and also when you wake up . . . it has no side effects.”

  “And your husband?”

  “He too. He also doesn’t sleep well, so it’s been several years now that we . . . Two or three times a week, not every night . . . We also had a few problems at work. My husband’s an accountant,” she explained importantly, “and I work for him as his secretary, so . . . we work together.”

  “So then,” said Michael comfortably, “if Yoram goes out after you’ve gone to sleep with a pill, he could leave the house and you wouldn’t even know?”

  “Yes, maybe,” hesitated Clara Beinisch, and she hastened to add: “But then he tells us in the morning. Yoram tells us everyth—and he’s also very tired. High-tech is twelve, fourteen hours a day, all week long. They give benefits but—” Suddenly she went silent. “Why are you asking me all these things?” she rebelled. “What has he done, Yoram? Yoram is a wonderful boy, he never—”

  “Mrs. Beinisch,” said Michael, “look at this please,” and in a single motion he went up to her son and raised his foot and peeled off the sock. “Come and look at this ankle close up.”

  She got up slowly, approached her son, leaned over and examined the ankle. “What’s this, Yoram? What’s happened to your foot here?” she asked in alarm, and laid her hand on the bruised spot. Yoram Beinisch shrank back, but controlled himself quickly.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s from a few days ago and it’s already—”

  “A few days ago?!” said his mother in astonishment. “Yesterday there was nothing wrong there. I didn’t see a thing.” She turned toward Michael. “I see everything about my son, even if he wants to hide something so I shouldn’t worry, but right away I see,” she explained with a half-smile. “And I didn’t see that, and as a matter of fact I had a good look at his feet yesterday because—”

  “Enough, Mother. Stop it,” said her son quietly. “You don’t realize what they’re doing. They’ve taken my car away and we need a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer?” she said in alarm. “Why a lawyer? What have you done?”

  “I haven’t done anything,” said her son in despair, “but they’re saying I have.”

  “What?” Clara Beinisch stood up. “What?” Her eyes slashed Michael. “What do you want from him?”

  “We have reason to think that he is connected to the disappearance of Nessia Hayoun,” replied Michael calmly.

  “Nessia Hayoun is that fat little girl who disappeared, from the building across the street,” said her son.

  Clara Beinisch let out a scornful snort. “You must be out of your . . . mistaken. What does my son have to do with the little girl from acr
oss the street?” she asked Michael. “We don’t have anything to do with anybody. We don’t even know the neighbors here on the street. What does he have to do with this girl?”

  “They found her,” said her son, “this afternoon, near Yehuda Street.”

  “And she’s alive?” asked his mother.

  “Alive. Completely alive,” said Sergeant Yair, “and the indications that we have are that your son—”

  “Nonsense!” dismissed Clara Beinisch, and she added in a scolding tone: “Can’t you hear what I’m saying? My son, Yoram, would never hurt a fly, even when he was little. Baby birds, a little kitten—he brought everything home, and once when he had a rabbit and the rabbit died, do you know how much he cried? Our son is an angel, everyone knows that. Do you know what job offers he’s received? They’re always making him offers from other places. Everyone just wants to have him. Do you know how much Michelle’s parents love him? And they aren’t just anybody, they’re a family with very high status. Her mother’s family goes back to the American Revolution, they came from England, and her father is also three generations in America. It’s a family with status and everything, and how they love Yoram! You’re talking nonsense. Just nonsense.”

  “Perhaps after tests, if he comes with us, it will turn out to be nonsense,” agreed Michael.

  “What tests?” she asked suspiciously, and clasped her hand to her neck.

  “Various procedures,” replied Michael.

  “I’m not going to the police,” said Yoram Beinisch. “And you have no right to take me against my will. Only a judge can—”

  “What judge, Yoram?” said his mother in alarm. “There’s no need for a judge. You haven’t done anything.”

  “We won’t take you if you don’t agree,” said Michael, looking at him with hard eyes. “We will take you with us with your full agreement, and any lawyer you consult will tell you that it is better to—”

  “But why?” pleaded Clara Beinisch. “Explain to me what he has done. I’m telling you that he hasn’t—”

  “That bite on his ankle from last night is enough, isn’t it?” said Yair. “It could be from the little girl’s dog. Whoever kidnapped the girl slaughtered her dog.”