Asylum City

by Liad Shoham

  Yariv remained silent.

  “That is, unless you are guilty. In that case, go. Confess and get it off your chest. Tell them what happened and hope for the best. If they find out later that you did it, they won’t be willing to reduce the charges to manslaughter.”

  Pure terror showed on Yariv’s face.

  “I say wait until you know more. There’s no need to rush into anything. Maybe someone else killed her and the cops will make an arrest. Who knows?” Kobi was working hard to convince his friend, to give him a good reason to sit tight.

  “How long am I supposed to wait?” Yariv sounded frustrated.

  “We both know there’s a criminal prosecutor assigned to every investigation from the very beginning. The cops have to tell them what’s going on, consult with them, get their consent for all sorts of procedures. They have to make sure they’ll be able to use all the evidence they turn up. That could . . .” Kobi didn’t have to go on. He wouldn’t be saying this to a regular client, but Yariv was his friend. And he was also a prosecutor himself.

  Yariv nodded. He understood very well what Kobi was trying to say. Working in the State Attorney’s Office gave him a distinct advantage. He had access to information that other people didn’t have.

  The two men sat opposite each other in silence.

  “I said things about her in the bar,” Yariv said finally. “Maybe someone heard me talking.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Kobi said dismissively.

  “And my face is swollen. People have been asking me about it, you know. I told them I fell off my bike. I wasn’t thinking. I don’t even have a bike. I told you, someone stole it . . . What if the cops find out I was roughed up? That I don’t have a bike? It won’t look good.”

  “How are they going to find out? Why should anyone be interested?” Kobi’s tone was scornful but firm. “No one’s going to remember what you said. I’m sure it went in one ear and out the other. If they ask, say it was a rent-a-bike. Trust me, you have nothing to worry about. Nobody’s going to care.”

  Yariv leaned closer and put his hand on Kobi’s arm. “You can be my alibi. If they ask, you can say there’s no way I could have done it, that you were with me . . . I mean . . . ,” he said hesitantly.

  Kobi didn’t respond. He’d already said too much. And he had no intention of lying to the police.

  “This is driving me nuts, Kobi. You have to tell me you believe I didn’t ki . . . kill her, that it’s not possible . . . ,” Yariv said, his voice breaking.

  Kobi remained silent.

  Chapter 15

  ANAT passed her fingers through her hair nervously as the medical examiner, Dr. Yiftach Sassoon, described Michal Poleg in his usual flat, clinical manner: build, age, height, weight, hair, teeth, clothing. Meeting with the pathologist was one of the worst parts of her job. It wasn’t the sight of the corpse or even the smell that got to her. By now she’d been to enough crime scenes to see corpses in every possible condition and state of decomposition. Another body didn’t faze her.

  What was hard for her to take was the autopsy room itself. Unlike what she’d imagined before the visit to the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine during her training, it was nothing like a sterile operating room. The stainless-steel table and sink, the white tiles, and the array of knives and other instruments reminded her more of an industrial kitchen. It was always hard for her to see the body laid out in this setting. A crime scene was chaotic, with people coming and going. The body of the victim was just another piece of evidence. But here there was only the corpse spread out on the table in a quiet room, looking so alone, exposed, and vulnerable. The presence of death was unnervingly tangible.

  Anat lowered her eyes as the autopsy team began removing Michal’s clothes. She seemed even smaller than at the crime scene, almost childlike.

  Anat had already questioned the family. She got the impression that Michal was quite a character. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, to go against the rest of the family, or to pay the price. She didn’t have a cell phone (she hated gadgets) or a driver’s license (she couldn’t bear the thought of accidentally taking a life). She didn’t eat meat, fish, honey, or eggs, and there were times when she would only eat fruit that fell from the tree. She didn’t have a job, except for the volunteer work she did for OMA and an organization for victims of sexual abuse. She lived frugally on the small inheritance from her grandmother. According to her brother, Michal felt it was only right that the money left by her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor and once a refugee herself, should be used to help other refugees. He was incensed by her attitude.

  “Trauma to the abdomen,” Dr. Sassoon stated, interrupting her thoughts. He pointed to a bruise below the right rib cage.

  “Somebody punched her,” he said before Anat had a chance to ask.

  About fifty hours had gone by since the call came in. At some point during that time Anat had gone back to her apartment on Bloch Street where she’d showered, changed clothes, and allowed herself about three hours of uninterrupted sleep. She’d spent the past two nights in her office at district headquarters, napping periodically on the floor on an old army mattress.

  She watched as Dr. Sassoon made an incision in the body and began peeling back the tissue. She felt sorry for Michal lying there, helpless, while strangers mauled her and stripped her of her clothes and her flesh.

  Meanwhile, Anat had nothing to go on. Except for Shmuel Gonen, no one else had seen an African man fleeing the building. They’d combed the area for cameras. There was one in the grocery store at the end of the block, but it hadn’t picked up anything useful.

  They found prints belonging to a number of different people in the apartment, but none of them were in their database. Whoever murdered Michal Poleg had never been arrested. The blood on the outside of the door didn’t belong to Michal, but the person who left it there didn’t leave any inside the apartment, and there was no blood trail.

  The pathologist turned the body over.

  “Ah, here it is,” Dr. Sassoon said in a tone of satisfaction.

  “What?”

  “She was struck hard on the back of the neck. That’s what killed her.”

  “A direct blow?” Anat asked in surprise. She’d assumed Michal had been strangled. She’d seen the marks on her neck.

  “It’s hard to be certain,” Dr. Sassoon answered, raising his eyes to her, “but it looks more like a blow with a blunt object than a bruise sustained in a fall.”

  “And what about the marks on her neck, the scratches on her face, the black eye, the bruise on the abdomen?”

  “I’d say she got those a day, maybe a day and a half, earlier.”

  Anat looked at Michal’s face. What happened to her in the last days of her life? Was there a connection between the beating and the murder? It didn’t seem likely that someone would beat her up and then kill her a day later. Maybe if she had a husband or a boyfriend, but as far as she knew, Michal wasn’t in a romantic relationship at the time of her death.

  Yaron had told her what he learned from her boss, Itai Fisher. In Yaron’s opinion, all the talk about the “Banker” being out to get her was paranoid nonsense that wouldn’t lead anywhere. Just wild speculation. Anat wasn’t convinced yet. At this stage in the investigation, they couldn’t ignore any lead.

  Her cell phone rang. She switched it off. David was demanding constant reports even though, or maybe because, he was in Austria, acting like a guardian angel sitting on her shoulder with a cigarette in his hand. Yochai, the District Commander, was also on the phone to her every couple of hours to satisfy himself that she had things under control until David got back. They were driving her crazy, wasting her time instead of letting her get on with the job.

  “Can you estimate time of death?” she asked as her phone rang again. She’d planned to let Sassoon finish the autopsy in peace, but the persistence of her callers made it clear that wouldn’t be possible.

  Sassoon scratched his h
ead as he checked his notes.

  “Sometime between one and three in the morning,” he said.

  “You sure?” He was full of surprises. The events described by Shmuel Gonen had taken place around noon.

  “Absolutely.”

  Anat pulled out her phone and saw a message from Yaron: “We got a lead on the African.”

  Chapter 16

  GABRIEL was curled up in a fetal position. He was cold and wet and his teeth were chattering. Dawn was still a few hours away. Until the sun came up, the temperature would keep falling and it would get even colder. Other people were lying on the grass around him, struggling to keep dry.

  He’d taken Arami’s advice and come back to Levinsky Park. For most of the day, he’d sat on the grass in a quiet corner, trying not to attract attention, to fade into the background. New people showed up here every day. He was surrounded by unfamiliar faces. The newcomers wandered around in a daze, frightened and bewildered. He was the same way when he first arrived. It was easy to merge with them and make himself invisible.

  He was still haunted by the sight of Michal lying dead on the red carpet, her face even paler than usual. When he didn’t see the image of Michal in his head, he heard the sound of Liddie screaming, calling out to him, pleading for her life. It was driving him insane.

  He spoke to no one, just sat by himself, consumed by his thoughts and his torments, shivering from the cold and terrified. He had no idea what was happening in the world outside the park. How was Itai reacting to his disappearance? Was anyone looking for him? Had the police identified him? Had Michal’s body been buried? He wanted to go to the funeral so he could tell her how grateful he was, so he could say good-bye.

  Gabriel shut his eyes, trying to force himself to fall asleep. He was very tired, but he couldn’t get any rest. He was too wound up. Drawing gave him some release. When he sketched, he was totally absorbed in what he was doing. It calmed him, allowed him to forget for a moment.

  All of a sudden he sensed a flurry of activity around him. Gabriel opened his eyes. People were getting up. The police were in the park.

  Up until yesterday afternoon, he hadn’t been afraid of the police. He was Eritrean born and bred. People like him were protected in Israel; they couldn’t be deported. Hagos had lived with his family in Ethiopia for several years, so the Israelis decided he was Ethiopian. But Gabriel had never left Eritrea. In fact, until he set out on the journey with Liddie, he’d never even left his village. But things had changed. Michal’s neighbor must have told the police that he killed her.

  He counted three policemen. They were searching the park, shining their flashlights in people’s faces. They would find him. They’d take him away and hang him, just like Arami said. And then the men who were holding Liddie wouldn’t get their money and she would die, too.

  Should he run? The tall police officer walking in his direction was still about five yards away. Gabriel was quick on his feet. He could make a run for it. But what if the park was surrounded? How would he get away?

  The tall policeman crouched over a man sleeping nearby, blinding him with his flashlight. As the man raised his arm to shield his eyes from the light, the policeman grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him upright. Then he let him go and the man fell to the ground.

  Gabriel was shaking. There was no longer any doubt in his mind. They were looking for him. He wanted to flee, but his feet wouldn’t budge. He was paralyzed by fear.

  The rain started coming down heavily just as the tall policeman shone his flashlight on the man beside him. Gabriel’s heart was racing. They’d never believe he had nothing to do with Michal’s death. They’d say he fled and tried to hide because he was guilty.

  It was Gabriel’s turn. He couldn’t breathe. The light hurt his eyes. He pulled his shoulder up close to his face in an attempt to hide the scar. Maybe the policeman wouldn’t see it in the dark. Please, God, he prayed, don’t let him see it. It will be the end of me. The end of Liddie.

  The raindrops falling from the sky merged with his tears.

  Chapter 17

  “WELL, Nachmias, did you get him?” The DC asked when she walked into his office to give him her morning report. She’d been here yesterday, too, but then she was in a hurry to get to Abu Kabir for the autopsy so they’d only talked for five minutes. That was the first time she’d ever met with him one-on-one. Before that, David had always been present and the DC had barely glanced in her direction. Now she was feeling the pressure of flying solo.

  “Not yet,” she confessed. “But we’re getting close.”

  Yochai licked his upper lip in silence. Part of the tension she was feeling stemmed from the fact that it was hard for her to read him. Was licking his lip a sign of irritation or displeasure, or just an urgent need for lip balm? She could read David like a book, but it had taken her a while. By now she knew what worried him, what annoyed him, and, most important, what made him go in a certain direction.

  Anat debated whether to raise the subject of the medical examiner’s report. She’d e-mailed Yochai the main conclusions yesterday and called his secretary to make sure he’d gotten it. He hadn’t replied.

  “Have you been to her place of work, that aid organization? Did you find out who she had dealings with?”

  “She was very devoted to the people she worked with,” Anat answered, sensing the need to defend Michal and her principles. “We got a list of the people she was close to. One of them has a scar on his face that fits Gonen’s description. We’re focusing our attention on him.”

  She decided there was no need to explain the difficulties they were facing. The DC was well aware of them, and if she spelled them out it would just sound like she was making excuses. The biggest problem was the suspect’s lack of any roots or history in Israel. People like the African man they were searching for didn’t have family in the country who they could lean on to get them to reveal his whereabouts. There were no friends he grew up with, no one who went to school with him or served in the same army unit, no address or employment records. Moreover, all Africans looked alike to Israelis, so it was very hard to get an identification. Even the sketch they’d made with the help of Gonen didn’t do much good. The man in the sketch looked like all the other Africans around the old bus station, except for the scar on his face.

  The refugees, illegal aliens, asylum seekers—or whatever you chose to call them depending on your politics—were hard for law enforcement, or anyone else for that matter, to get their hands on. “A black hole that’s getting bigger, in every sense of the word,” the district intelligence officer, Gilad, had described the situation.

  “What about the community leaders? Have you spoken to them?” Yochai asked, breaking into her thoughts. “It’s in their interest to cooperate with us. They want to demonstrate that they’re law-abiding people. Especially now with all the clashes with the Israelis in the neighborhood. We’re protecting their butts.”

  “Yes, I spoke to everyone I could find. They promised to help,” Anat answered. “The thing is there’s a good chance the guy we’re looking for is Eritrean, so there’s no community to speak of. The Eritreans keep to themselves. They’re not as organized as the Sudanese.”

  Yochai grimaced.

  “We showed the sketch around the old bus station, asked people if they recognized him, told them to contact us if they see him. We offered a reward for information. A few tips came in from people who claimed to have seen him. We sent a squad out to Levinsky Park last night on the basis of one anonymous tip, but no luck yet.”

  “Okay, keep the pressure on. You can always find informants in places like that where there’s no strong community and money is hard to come by. Eventually someone will see him and rat him out,” the DC said, turning his attention to his computer screen to signal the end of the meeting.

  “If I may, Yochai,” Anat said, not yet ready to leave. “There are a few more things I’d like to run by you.”

  “Go on.” He raised his eyes to her with obv
ious reluctance, passing his tongue over his upper lip again.

  Anat took a deep breath. It was clear to her that it was no accident she hadn’t heard back from him yesterday.

  “The theory that the African killed her,” she began, “is based entirely on Shmuel Gonen’s statement. But there are problems with that. He admitted he wasn’t on good terms with Michal, but he forgot to mention that she filed two harassment complaints against him in the past year. In addition, the medical examiner’s report rules out the African he saw as the perp. I’m sure you noticed that.”

  Yochai gazed at her in silence with an expression she couldn’t read.

  “Besides,” she went on quickly, knowing the time he was willing to allot to her was running out, “nobody else saw an African fleeing the building. We checked the whole area for cameras, questioned the neighbors. We didn’t turn up any other evidence that he was there. And that’s not a neighborhood where the presence of an African man would go unnoticed.”

  “So what are you saying, Nachmias? Gonen made it up? Maybe he killed her himself because of the complaints?” Yochai’s tone was disdainful.

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t think he assaulted Michal and I don’t think he made up the story. He doesn’t give the impression of being clever or cold-blooded enough for that. I believe he saw an African man leaving her apartment, but what he was doing there I don’t know. I think we have to check other possibilities, not just concentrate on that one guy. We might be looking under the streetlight.” Anat sat up straighter, trying to project confidence and professionalism.

  “Okay, let’s say you’re right. What else have you got?” The DC’s lack of patience was apparent.

  “First of all, there’s her family. There wasn’t a lot of love lost between them. The grandmother left everything to Michal, including the apartment on Stricker Street. The family contested the will. Her younger brother told me how furious they were when the will was read. They claimed in court that Michal exerted undue influence on the grandmother. According to her brother, the son-in-law was the ringleader. He’s the one who convinced the family to take it to court. Michal didn’t leave a will, so now her family gets its hands on the apartment.”