A Possibility of Violence
Page 14
This time Ilana stopped him. She said, “I would like to emphasize that this is Avi’s assumption, not ours. And even if it seems reasonable to me as a working hypothesis, I don’t want the connection between the bomb and the assault to become indisputable fact in the framework of the investigation. Rather, I think we should also explore other avenues,” and Ma’alul asked, “For instance?”
Despite his age, Ma’alul looked to Avraham like a schoolboy during lunch break, with the half-eaten sandwich lying on the crumpled tinfoil in front of him.
“For instance, a random assault. Or a mugging. Her phone was stolen along with her wallet. We know for certain there was no rape, but it’s impossible to rule out the possibility that there was an attempted rape, or maybe a sexual assault that got complicated.”
Avraham waited for Ilana to finish, then continued without responding to what she’d said. His head was heavy from exhaustion despite his brief nap across the hall from Chava Cohen’s son at the hospital. “Our primary suspect is Chaim Sara, a fifty-seven-year-old resident of Holon,” he said. “He has a motive I can elaborate on in what follows. He has no prior criminal record. His son attends the daycare run by the victim, and apparently he came to suspect that she had harmed his son. It’s also possible that the motive was expressed in the manner of the assault. The victim was struck in the head, and the suspect said in questioning that his son returned from the daycare with injuries to the head, so perhaps there is a parallel here that needs to be taken into consideration. The main evidence gathered against him is circumstantial but strong. On the night of the assault he called the victim and held a conversation with her before she left her home. The day after the assault he bought plane tickets for himself and his children. He plans to flee Israel on Friday morning.”
Emotion was evident in Zaytuni’s face and voice as he asked, quietly, “Have we taken out a stay order to prevent him from leaving Israel? If not, maybe it’s a good idea to contact the courts.” Only he looked and behaved as if this investigation into Chava Cohen’s assault was the investigation of his life. For Ilana, of course, it was one investigation among many for which she was responsible, and for Ma’alul a break from his work routine in the Juvenile Division. And Avraham had to prove something to himself and to Ilana, but it seemed to him that the closer he tried to get to the investigation the more it retreated from him, and the letter from Marianka only distanced him from it further. Ilana answered Zaytuni instead of him. “If we need to, we’ll take out a stay order on Thursday,” she said. “We have two days until then, and I hope that we’ll have results from the lab and that we’ll be able to bring the suspect in for interrogation and take finger- and shoe prints from him and confront him with the findings from the scene. And, more than that, I hope that the victim will wake up and be in a condition to tell us who assaulted her, or provide a description of him. If she saw him, of course.”
Zaytuni hurried to write something on the notepad lying in front of him. Ma’alul, having finished his breakfast, smoothed out the tinfoil that the sandwich had been wrapped in with the palm of his hand, folded it into a neat square, and put it back in his bag. Avraham said, “There is another issue with the suspect that I’ve been trying to clarify since yesterday. Our assumption—or mine, as Ilana said—is that a man and a woman were involved in the placement of the bomb and the assault. The warning call to the daycare was made by a woman, and it seems to us that Chava Cohen would not have arrived at the place of the assault in order to meet a man who had threatened her, but perhaps she would have come to a meeting she arranged with a woman. According to the records of the border police, the wife of the suspect, a Filipino citizen by the name of Jennifer Salazar, who holds a temporary ID card, left Israel on September twelfth and has not returned, but something is fishy here. I checked with most of the airlines departing to the Philippines and there was no passenger by the name of Jennifer Salazar on any flights. Not on that date or any other. I will try to reach the Philippine police in order to clarify whether or not she entered the country and if she has a criminal history.”
Ilana looked at him curiously. He hadn’t managed to tell her about the calls to the airlines before the meeting.
Did her skepticism concerning Avraham’s story stem only from her way of working? Maybe it was somehow connected to a loss of faith in him because of the mistakes in the previous investigation? In fact, the idea to call the airlines occurred to him when he recalled things she had said to him during the search for Ofer Sharabi. More than a week after the search began, in a moment of frustration, Avraham suggested to her the possibility that nothing at all had happened to Ofer. Maybe he got on a plane to Rio de Janeiro and is lying on a beach there? Ilana said to him then, “You know that he’s not in Rio de Janeiro, or at least you certainly could know. You can verify with the border police if he left Israel or not. And if he did, you can check with the airlines that fly to Brazil and see if he was on one of the flights that departed to Rio or to destinations along the way. He didn’t get on a plane with a fake passport, right? He’s not a Mossad agent, he’s just a high school kid.”
Now Ilana asked him, “And what if she traveled to some other place?” and Avraham answered, “The suspect stated in questioning that his wife traveled to the Philippines to take care of her sick father, and this is also what he told the travel agent from whom he bought the tickets for himself and his children. But maybe you’re right. In any case, if he lied about the travel, it’ll be additional evidence of his involvement in the assault and the placing of the suitcase, no? Otherwise why would he lie?”
HE DIDN’T THINK ABOUT MARIANKA UNTIL the end of the meeting, and only twice checked his cell phone under the table to see if he’d received any new messages. Ilana kept on insisting that Sara should not be the only direction of the investigation, and Avraham didn’t bother to object. He and Ilana drank another cup of coffee and at ten thirty divided the tasks among the team. Ilana instructed Zaytuni to continue investigating the assault as if it were a robbery. He’d explore links to incidents of assault that occurred in the area in recent months, go back and question the Sudanese men who found Chava Cohen in the ditch, and regularly monitor whether her credit cards were being used or if the stolen phone was turned on or sold. Ma’alul was put in charge of investigating the parents at the daycare. He was supposed to confirm the suspicion that Chava Cohen hit the children and verify whether or not any other parents had a motive for assaulting the teacher. Avraham would continue conducting surveillance from afar, as well as his silent investigation into Sara and his wife. Since the previous evening, after he bought the airplane tickets, Sara hadn’t left his apartment and hadn’t made a phone call. “And, most of all, let’s cross our fingers that the victim will wake up and make our lives easier,” Ilana summed up. “If it doesn’t happen by then, we’ll meet here Thursday morning and decide how we want to bring Sara in for questioning before the flight.”
Ma’alul again asked for permission to speak. He turned to Avraham and said, “Avi, before we start working, I’d like you to explain to me why you’re so sure it’s Sara. Because you’re sure of this, yes? And I respect your gut feelings.”
Was there a need to explain again?
He was sure because of the phone call and the motive and the plane tickets. Because of the strange travel story. And there were additional reasons, that he managed to explain to himself only retrospectively, once the case had come to an end. Ilana examined Ma’alul’s facial expression and large eyes while Avraham spoke. He wasn’t convinced, and she asked him why.
“I would be convinced if this were a spontaneous attack,” Ma’alul said. “At the daycare, for example, or immediately after it was closed. But if there actually is a connection between the suitcase and the assault, there appears to be a clear pattern of criminal activity here—placing a fake bomb and making a phone threat after that and then a meeting late at night in an empty place. It all attests to a criminal plan and not to violence stemming from a loss of control. It’s hard f
or me to believe that a fifty-seven-year-old man, without a criminal past, would, or could, carry out well-planned acts like these. Guys like him resort to violence spontaneously, and sometimes unintentionally, out of a loss of control. On the other hand, I didn’t question him or see him, and I’m willing to go with Avi’s gut feelings.”
Zaytuni wrote hurriedly in his notepad again. This time the words that caused Avraham to respond to the doubt that had been cast on his investigation were “guys like him.” He said quietly, “Did any of us think that Ofer Sharabi’s parents were capable of hiding his death and fabricating a sophisticated cover story for his absence?” and was immediately sorry he’d said that.
This was the first time that he, Ma’alul, and Ilana had gathered together since the day that case was solved. And the first time that he addressed aloud the lessons that he’d gleaned from that same case. To look with eyes open. And not trust anyone. The two of them considered him with a strange look, and Ilana said, “This isn’t the same case, nor the same people, Avi. And I tend to agree with Eliyahu. But let’s see.”
They walked together down the long corridor on the way to the elevator, Zaytuni and Ma’alul first, Avraham and Ilana after, and Ilana said to him, “You look like you haven’t slept. Everything okay, Avi?” And Avraham said only, “I had a very short night.”
When they reached the elevator, Ilana asked, “Did you hear what happened at the hospital?” And Avraham turned to her, surprised, because he feared that something had happened to Chava Cohen’s son—or that someone had reported his unexpected nap. Ma’alul held the elevator door open while she told them.
It turned out that a city beat cop arrived at the accident site where a truck collided with a motorcycle and noticed that under his leather jacket the rider lying in the street was wearing a black T-shirt with the word “Polska” on it. He quickly reported this, even before the rider was taken away in an ambulance. Shrapstein was waiting for the injured man in the hospital with an arrest warrant in hand and shortly afterward he had in his possession a documented confession, and the assassination attempt on Shenkar Street had been solved.
And all this happened while Avraham dozed in a chair in front of Chava Cohen’s room, not far from the emergency room? He didn’t tell Ilana that he went there to check on her because he hadn’t been able to sleep at home, and that of all places his eyes closed opposite her sleeping son. Ma’alul said, “The sages would say about this, ‘To the righteous goes the luck,’ no?”
HE MANAGED TO AVOID THOUGHTS OF Marianka also later that day, until he returned home, before evening. He went back to the station and heard a brief report about Sara’s activities. His preparations for the trip continued: at eleven he went out and again walked downtown, this time in order to buy a suitcase. His children still weren’t with him and his wife was nowhere in evidence. And he didn’t meet with anyone. A representative of Royal Jordanian, the last airline with which Avraham had to check on Sara’s wife’s travels, confirmed that Jennifer Salazar never flew with them to Manila via Amman and Hong Kong.
He ate an early lunch in the cafeteria and returned to his office.
According to The World Clock website, when it was noon in Holon it was exactly six in the evening in Manila. He was surprised when he heard the deep masculine voice that answered him at the Manila Police Information Center, and he said in English, “My name is Chief Inspector Avraham Avraham of the Israel Police. Can I speak to an officer from the Inspections Division?”
At first the Filipino man didn’t understand his request, or why he was asking to speak in English with the Inspections Division, which they called the Department of Criminal Investigations and Surveillance, and Avraham was forced to explain that he needed the assistance of the local police in the investigation of the placing of a fake bomb and an assault that occurred in Tel Aviv, even though he didn’t intend on revealing too many details of the case. He thought that perhaps he should try and make contact with the Aviation Security Department or simply speak with the Philippine police through the Unit for Foreign Relations. He said again, “My name is Chief Inspector Avraham from the Israel Police and I’m investigating an attack and a dummy bomb,” and added that the matter was urgent. The man asked him to wait on the line.
The website of the Philippine police was rich in information about the organization’s structure and the positions within it, but there wasn’t a photo on it of the police headquarters and thus he couldn’t picture what kind of building the man who answered him was sitting in or what the room looked like where in another moment an officer from the Department of Criminal Investigations and Surveillance would pick up the phone. In the many pictures on the website the Filipino policemen appeared smiling and meticulously dressed. All of them were slender and many wore glasses, which gave their faces a refined, sophisticated appearance. The truth was that Avraham knew little about the Philippines—only that the country was located somewhere in Asia and that its economic situation must be somewhat difficult if so many Filipinos came to work in Israel. And what did the street views from the windows of the police headquarters in Manila look like? He was sorry that he hadn’t done more research before calling the police center, and tried to open the “Philippines” page in Wikipedia, but he then heard another voice come on the line, thin and almost birdlike.
Brigadier General Anselmo Garbo, head of the Department of Criminal Investigations and Surveillance, asked him in quick English, “With whom do I have the honor of speaking?” And Avraham hoped that he wouldn’t be disappointed when he introduced himself again as only chief inspector. The name of the Filipino officer immediately gave rise to envy in him. “I understand that you are phoning in regards to an explosive device,” Anselmo Garbo said, and Avraham said, “Yes, definitely.”
“In Manila?” asked Garbo, and Avraham suddenly understood that the Filipino telephone receptionist made a mistake and assumed that he was calling in order to avert a terrorist attack and said, “No, no, I’m not calling about a terrorist attack. I’m from the Department of Criminal Investigations.”
Avraham read the rest of what he had to say from the paper resting in front of him in order to avoid a misunderstanding. “We are in need of your assistance in locating a citizen of the Philippines who lives in Israel. According to the information given to us and the records of the border police, she left Israel on the twelfth of September en route to the Philippines, but we have not succeeded in finding the flight that she boarded. We would like you to help us confirm that she is in the Philippines, and also to locate her.”
Garbo listened patiently to his words and asked Avraham for his name, rank, and phone number and apparently wrote them down. He had no apparent reason for thinking this, but it seemed to Avraham that the inspector he was speaking with was brilliant and shrewd. His words were brief and his voice was ear piercing. “Are you trying to inform me that a citizen of the Philippines is missing in Israel?” asked Garbo, and Avraham said, “No. I want to clarify if she entered your country and when.”
“Could you tell me from which date she is missing and who submitted the complaint?”
“No one submitted a complaint. We simply need to summon her to give testimony.”
Garbo wouldn’t relent, and Avraham was forced to tell him that he wanted to summon the absent woman for questioning in regards to an assault that took place in Tel Aviv. He explained that she was not suspected of involvement in the assault but that her testimony was essential, and for some reason he sensed that Garbo did not believe him. After receiving Jennifer Salazar’s passport number from Avraham, Garbo said briefly, “I will update my supervisors and the Department of International Coordination and respond to you soon,” and hung up.
On Wikipedia Avraham read that Manila is the most crowded metropolis in the world and that more than fifteen million people live there. He couldn’t understand how a police inspector there could locate an anonymous attacker or a person who placed a fake bomb and then disappeared into a mass like that.
Brigadier General Anselmo Garbo was the most decorated inspector in the Manila police. Four years earlier, according to a story that he read in the Daily Tribune, he caught a serial killer who had terrorized the residents of the city for over half a year. The fellow had murdered eleven people, carved up their abdomens, and placed amid their internal organs a rare flower—a Michauxia campanuloides. Afterward he sewed up their abdomens with a surgeon’s precision. Garbo joined the investigation late because he was on a year of study at the Academy for Criminal Investigations in Paris, and two weeks after his return was on the murderer’s trail, after deciphering the meaning of the deadly symbol.
Avraham felt as if he had spoken with a character out of a movie or a novel.
A picture was included in the story and Avraham saw that Garbo’s face was small and narrow with a hawklike nose, and that he wore round glasses. Also he was bald.
He called the hospital after a cigarette break and spoke with a rude doctor from the Trauma Unit. Forensics promised him that by tomorrow analysis of the findings from the scene of the assault would be completed. When he opened the door to his apartment, in the early evening, he heard a ringing from inside. He had a feeling that the telephone had been ringing between the empty walls of his apartment for some time, and that Marianka was the caller, and he hurried to pick up but was met with silence on the other end of the line. He waited for the device to ring again. Afterward he sent Marianka another e-mail: WILL WE NEVER SPEAK AGAIN?
She didn’t reply to this one, either.
THAT NIGHT HE SLEPT FOR A long time, but the investigation wouldn’t let go of him. He dreamed that he was falling and spinning around and that nothing he tried to grab hold of could keep him from falling. Marianka was supposed to be waiting for him at a bus stop.