Murder in Jerusalem

by Batya Gur

  “Yes,” Michael said. “We saw it and recorded it. We recorded it, right, Tzilla?”

  “That’s why we’re sitting in this room,” Tzilla said, inserting a cassette into the VCR. “Should I start the video?”

  “Pay close attention to Hefetz’s speech,” Eli Bachar said. “I was there when he was giving it. Not in the studio but in the newsroom. We all stopped what we were doing for a minute.”

  Tzilla started the tape. Hefetz’s full, round face filled the screen as he proclaimed, with a grave expression, “It is with great sorrow and deep regret that the board of directors and employees of the Israel Broadcasting Authority announce the untimely—”

  “He’s totally over the top,” Lillian called out. “Those are the same words they used to announce—I mean, we’re not talking about the prime minister here.”

  “Never mind, that’s not important,” Eli Bachar said, shutting her up.

  Michael, distracted, caught fragments of sentences: “…employees of the Israel Broadcasting Authority announce…all the citizens of the state of Israel…lucky that…”

  “Wait, quiet.” Until now Emmanuel Shorer had been sitting quietly, watching. “Listen carefully to what he is saying here. Tzilla, rewind the tape, please.”

  Tzilla pressed the button on the remote control and rewound the tape. “Here,” Shorer said. “Stop here. Now listen up, everybody.”

  “…to carry out the principles established by Shimshon Zadik, may his memory be a blessing,” Hefetz began, his trembling voice full of emotion. “The news must go on,…I have taken upon myself to fill in as director of Israel Television and hope to function according to the will of my superiors and to express faithfully the policy of the government, to which the Israel Broadcasting Authority is subject—”

  “Stop!” Shorer cried. “Stop the tape, Tzilla.”

  “What happened?” Balilty wondered. “I didn’t hear anything too remarkable.”

  “You didn’t?” Shorer marveled. “‘To express faithfully the policy of the government.’ We’ve never heard anything like that before: that man should not be serving as director of Israel Television under any circumstances! That is certainly not what Zadik would have done.”

  “So what does it mean?” Balilty asked, his face openly astonished. “Are you suggesting that’s a motive for murder? That maybe it was all a plot, that somebody ordered Hefetz to—you mean to say that somebody wanted to shut Zadik up so that Hefetz could take over for him and become the government’s mouthpiece? That’s what you mean?”

  “We have learned,” Shorer said placidly, “from years of experience, that in a murder case every odd detail, every exception to the rule, can turn into a lead. Do you not think this speech is quite exceptional?”

  “Well, it’s certainly not standard issue,” Balilty said, squirming in his chair, “but what does it, like, mean? Do you think it’s connected to the whole issue with the ultra-Orthodox and Natasha’s investigation?”

  The door opened, and a uniformed police officer stood in the doorway. He was breathing heavily, his breaths loud in the ensuing silence. “Excuse me, sir,” the policeman said, then, noticing Emmanuel Shorer, turned to him and excused himself again.

  “What’s going on, Davidov?” Shorer asked. “Has something happened?”

  “They dispatched me to tell you…a body’s been found in an apartment near the Oranim gas station. They couldn’t phone in because you’re in a meeting—nobody’s answering their cell phones or beepers—so they sent me. It’s the body of a man.”

  “Why the—” Eli Bachar began, irritated. “Is that any reason to—” He fell silent when Shorer raised his arm.

  “Why was it important for us to know this immediately?” Shorer asked. “Who thought it was something we needed to be disturbed about?”

  “They say, sir,” Davidov explained from his position in the doorway, “that the guy fits the description in the composite we’ve been passing around.”

  “What? What did you say?” Balilty shouted as he jumped to his feet.

  “They’re saying that the guy’s the right age, with burns, and dressed like an ultra-Orthodox Jew,” Davidov said, rolling the hem of his windbreaker between his fingers. “They phoned from the site by telephone—they didn’t want anyone to listen in over the transmitters or cell phones—they asked for you to get down there right away,” he said to Michael.

  “Where is it exactly?” Michael asked, rising from his chair. Eli Bachar and Sergeant Ronen rose to their feet, too. Michael’s eyes were locked on Emmanuel Shorer’s face.

  “Here, I’ve got it all written down,” Davidov said as he handed a large piece of paper to Michael on which was written an address in thick pencil. “It’s in the Mekor Haim area, two buildings behind the Oranim gas station. Second floor, the top floor of the building. The entrance is from the rear. The names of the policewoman and the investigator who found him are written on the side, but they asked you not to talk to them by transmitter, only by cell phone if you absolutely have to. The number’s on the paper, too.”

  Balilty peered at the paper. “Nina Peretz? You know her?” he asked Michael over Shorer’s shoulder as they raced from the room. Michael had already reached the stairs.

  “I know her, and you do too,” Shorer said. “Nina, the redhead. The one with the…” He drew narrow hips with his hands in the air.

  “Ah, Nina!” Balilty exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. They were on the stairs heading toward the entrance to the building. “The redhead, from Hatzor Haglilit, right? Wasn’t she relocated to the southern district? I heard she was sent south because—” He looked to the left and right, but one look from Shorer made him shut his mouth.

  “They moved her and then moved her back again,” Shorer said. “There’s a new police commander, so she came back. Why are you so surprised? She was going nuts down in Beersheva. She said there was no one she could relate to, said she didn’t get to meet anyone interesting. She requested a transfer, and we moved her back. Are you riding with me or with Ohayon?”

  “What kind of a question is that?” Balilty asked. “With you, of course. You can tell me all about Nina the redhead; what great news that she’s…” He fell silent while Shorer removed the blue flashing light from his car and affixed it to the roof, then sounded the siren and raced after the squad car ahead of him transporting Michael, Eli Bachar, and Lillian, who had somehow squeezed in without being invited.

  “Great news? What’s the great news?” Shorer asked in a loud voice to overcome the noise of the siren. But Balilty waved his hand dismissively and said, under his breath, “Nothing. I didn’t say a thing.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  While the south Jerusalem street that curved away from the gas station was quite dark, the front yard of the dilapidated building, surrounded by towering old cypress trees, was illuminated by two spotlights that had been placed in the entrance. One after the other, the cars driven by Emmanuel Shorer and Michael Ohayon pulled up behind the forensics van that stood by the ambulance in front of the crooked, rusty gate. Jumping out of Shorer’s car, Balilty complained about the bitter cold and raised the fur collar on his jacket. “Check it out,” said Sergeant Ronen, who emerged after Balilty from the car, “a real Jerusalem winter.” A band of children appeared from behind the gate and quickly dispersed. “Anybody who hasn’t been here can’t know how cold it can get,” he said. Shivering, he glared at the one child who had not run away and was now standing next to the van, hiding behind a group of adults undeterred by the light rain. “Tell me,” Ronen said to no one in particular, “what are these kids doing out here? It’s after ten o’clock; don’t they have parents? Don’t they have to get up for school in the morning?” He watched the children run away and entered the front yard of the building.

  Several bearded young men wearing skullcaps and dark clothing stood huddled together under two black umbrellas. “Hey, Mr. Policeman,” one called out to Shorer as he emerged from the car and looked around, “
what happened here? Is it true there’s a dead body inside? Is it a murder? Did somebody get killed?” Shorer did not even look in their direction; he simply walked quickly inside, his head bent against the rain.

  “We’re from the yeshiva next door, we’re the neighbors. We’d like to know,” said another, stepping out from under the umbrella.

  “Go on, get lost,” Balilty chided them. “Go back to your yeshiva,” he said with obvious loathing. He added, when he saw that the young men did not budge: “Like it’s really your yeshiva, like you really own the place. In fact you just move into a place that’s slated to become a neighborhood clubhouse, and then you call it your yeshiva. Take off, get out of here now!” He was shouting. “Go ruin some other part of the city, go fill the place with yeshivas. You’ve already destroyed Jerusalem, the whole city you’ve ruined.”

  Michael placed a hand on Balilty’s arm. “Not now, Danny,” he said quietly. “You’ve found just the time to repair the world.”

  “Who’s talking about the world?” he grumbled. “They’ve ruined the Mahane Yehuda market and everywhere else they go. Property values tumble to half wherever they show up.”

  Michael sighed. He almost said, How many times a day do I have to listen to your lamentations about how religious people have ruined the real estate market in Jerusalem? Instead, he remained silent, watching two women who had rested plastic shopping bags filled with groceries on the fence, close to the narrow path that led from the sidewalk to the entrance of the building, and also the portly man near them with the loud cough. “Please clear out, people,” he told them. “You’re making things difficult for us.” He waited a moment, until one of the women stooped slowly to retrieve her two large bags with a sigh. Without waiting to see whether they had really left the premises, he followed quickly after Balilty and Shorer along the stone path lit up in bluish light by the spotlight.

  A policeman stepped out from inside the building. “Over here, sir,” he called to Shorer, who was near the head of the line. “And watch your step. Make sure you walk along the stone path, it’s muddy on both sides of the pavement.” To Michael he said, “There are stairs at the back of the building that lead straight up to the second floor.” He watched as Eli Bachar hesitated at the end of the path before leading them to the narrow staircase.

  A large flashlight had been placed next to the last door on the second floor as well, and it was lighting up the rusty, crumbling banister and two large plants placed on the landing in front of the wide-open door. The harsh light painted the sole surviving geranium a bright bubblegum pink and illuminated the doorbell, which had been ripped from its place and was dangling from an electrical wire next to the door frame, banging occasionally in the cold wind.

  Nina the redhead, in tight blue jeans, was already waiting in the doorway. She’s no longer a redhead, Balilty thought to himself; her hair had been cut short and in the pale light of the hallway he could make out highlights of platinum blond. Balilty also managed to whisper—perhaps to Michael, perhaps to himself—that she seemed to have put on some weight, which did no harm to the charm of her sturdy little body.

  “Nina, sweetheart, long time no see,” Balilty said, pressing in before Michael. He patted her shoulder and stooped to kiss her cheek. But she turned her face away, a frown on her full lips, and gently pushed Balilty aside with a small hand sporting a large diamond ring on one finger.

  “What have we got here, Nina?” Shorer asked.

  “Please step inside, sir, see for yourself. The body’s in the first room on the right.” A moment later she noticed Michael, and her lips widened into a half-smile. “How are you?” she whispered.

  He nodded, then shrugged. “You can see for yourself,” he said.

  “Tell me about it,” Nina said, casting a furtive glance at Lillian, who had already entered the apartment and was following Shorer toward the room where the body was. She added, “In fact, you look quite good. I’ve heard you’ve given up smoking. Is it true?”

  Eli Bachar, who entered at that very moment and heard her question, laughed quietly. He turned to a member of the forensics unit who was leaning over a large bag lying on the floor near the front door, and tapped his shoulder.

  “I see rumors reach all the way down to Beersheva,” Michael said, drawing close enough to take in the heavy scent of her sweet perfume, a fragrance that had annoyed him back in that short period of time when she had taken to consulting him on personal matters, when she was still married to a man she despised but from whom she refused to separate for reasons that were never clear to him. Michael had bought her a bottle of perfume then, something light and lemony, but she—after thanking him, her eyes teary (“You have no idea how touching it is when a man thinks to bring you something”)—had sprayed a little onto her wrist, frowned in her typically doubtful manner, and said she could not dream of giving up on her Estée Lauder.

  “You’ll give up smoking, too, when you get to be my age,” he said.

  “My ripe old age,” Balilty said. “Don’t forget to say, ‘my ripe old age.’” He approached Nina, took her hand in his own, and examined the diamond. “So what’s this all about?” he asked. “Have you gotten engaged?” The look in her eyes, which lit up in shades of brown and green, was enough to make him stifle his smile; he clucked in sympathy when she told him the ring had belonged to her mother, who had died several months earlier.

  In the meantime, they entered the first room on the right, which, due to its low ceiling, appeared small and oppressive. The forensics expert explained that this was one of three rooms, and that it appeared the man had not been in the apartment for very long: the kitchen was nearly empty of food and the rooms nearly bereft of furniture. He told them that the fully dressed body of a man had been discovered on the narrow bed pushed up against the wall. An overcoat had been found hanging from a simple wooden chair next to a bare table, and the fringes of a gray wool scarf that had apparently been draped around the dead man’s neck had been moved aside by the doctor, who was at that moment examining him. The forensics expert told Shorer, “I’m pretty certain he was strangled, like this”—he grabbed the ends of the scarf—“with hands and perhaps the scarf. Can you see?” he asked, turning to Michael. “Even under the beard and the burn marks you can see—on his neck, on his forehead, under his eyes, wherever you get a glimpse of his skin—that the coloring and the spots indicate this is the face of a man who has been strangled.”

  Michael glanced at the gaunt body; rigor mortis was already setting in, and he turned his gaze to the bare walls instead. The room was damp and smelled of mold. Emmanuel Shorer shoved aside an electrical cord that extended from a space heater near the bed. “Didn’t they even turn it on?” he asked, to which the doctor shook his head.

  “It’s thanks to the cold that his body is so well preserved,” the doctor explained. “However, this didn’t happen days ago, it’s only a matter of hours—six or eight, perhaps—there are all kinds of signs. We’ll only know after the autopsy.” He rolled back the sleeve of the dead man’s sweater and also that of the gray flannel undershirt beneath it and carefully examined his arm. The inner forearm was full of red and blue bruises. “Hemorrhages,” the doctor told Michael. “It seems he was receiving injections. Look here,” he said, as Michael drew near and bent down to the bed. “On the one hand it doesn’t appear…but he was also very thin, there’s no question about it. We’ll be a lot smarter after the autopsy. But there’s something else here—”

  “He could have simply rotted here,” Nina said, cramming her hands into the back pockets of her tight jeans as she approached the bed.

  “Is that how you dress for work?” Balilty asked from where he was standing in the doorway. He pointed at her black leather boots with stiletto heels.

  “I was on my way out on a date,” she explained testily, “when I was called here. You see what a responsible person I am? Anyway, as I was saying, the person who strangled him was counting on the fact that the apartment was empty and
no one was expected here. The guy would have rotted here for a few days, that was the idea. But thank God the neighbor found him. If she hadn’t—”

  “Doesn’t anyone live here?” Balilty asked. “This place is completely empty. I looked in the kitchen, the fridge looks about a hundred years old.”

  “Does he have a name, this man?” Shorer asked. “Is this the person we’ve been looking for or not?”

  “It is,” Nina confirmed. “We know it not only from the composite drawing but also from his passport, which says his name is Israel Hayoun, I’ll show it to you in just a second—” She hurried from the room, returning a moment later with a brown envelope wrapped in plastic. “He had two passports, one Israeli and one American. He entered the country on his American passport. Here’s the stamp from two days ago, look right here.” Then she pointed to a corner of the room. “Those were his belongings, there’s his suitcase, we’ve had an initial look through it all.” Michael thought there was something heartbreaking about the old brown suitcase, the kind he had not seen for years, similar to one he had found in the attic of his former father-in-law, Yuzek. That one had been tied with rope, and now, just as then, images of detachment, expulsion, and loneliness rose in his mind. “Two shirts, a sweater, a pair of trousers, underpants, undershirts, socks, two of everything; a Bible he got in the army—the date’s written inside—a prayer book, two old photos in frames, and this book of poems. You understand poetry, right, Michael?” she asked as she handed him a thin brown volume with yellowing pages that was falling to pieces and held together by a thick rubber band. “Look, there’s a dedication. I don’t know anything about Israeli poetry,” she mumbled. “Only Russian.” She watched as Michael carefully removed the rubber band and gazed at the first page. Underneath the title Stars Outside was written, in black ink, “To our Sroul, on the occasion of having completed seventeen winters. From Tirzah and Arye.”