Asylum City

by Liad Shoham

  Yochai gestured for her to continue. Clearly, he wasn’t buying the story about the family.

  “There’s also the matter of the blood on the outside of the door . . .”

  “Which could belong to our guy. We won’t know until we catch him,” Yochai cut in.

  “True, but in any case it’s odd that it wasn’t found anywhere else.”

  Yochai’s scowl persuaded her to move on. He was right. The blood would only figure into it when they had a suspect.

  “We can’t forget the message she left on Itai Fisher’s phone. She said she was assaulted, that she found out something. Fisher says she got on the wrong side of a crime syndicate. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth checking into. The poor woman went through hell the last week of her life.”

  “Yaron told me it was all nonsense. There’s no evidence,” Yochai interrupted.

  “I know, but . . . ,” Anat went on, filing away for future use the information that Yaron had gone to the DC behind her back.

  “But what? Where do you want to go with this? What’s your theory, Nachmias?” Yochai didn’t even try to disguise his irritation.

  “I don’t have one yet,” she replied, stressing the final word. “And I don’t think I need one at this early stage. We have to keep gathering evidence, not eliminate any options at this point. The African is one possibility, but in my opinion . . .”

  “I heard your opinion.” Yochai cut her off abruptly, looking back down at his computer. “I’ll make a deal with you. First find the African and then we’ll talk about other options.”

  “I’m not saying that finding him isn’t a priority. I told you, we’re getting closer. I’m just asking not to devote all our resources to him. Let me . . .” Anat didn’t want to leave the meeting empty-handed.

  “You’re not trying hard enough, Nachmias,” Yochai declared. “I want results, not speculations. The African first, then we’ll talk about whatever you want, if there’s still anything to talk about. The time you’re wasting here would be better spent working the case.”

  Chapter 18

  ITAI’S voice was shaking. He’d rewritten his eulogy over and over again last night, typing and deleting, struggling to come to terms with the fact that he was writing it for her.

  He cleared his throat. There were a lot of people there. His mother, who ranked funerals by the number of mourners, would call it a “respectable turnout.” The sun was shining after a string of rainy days and the sky was a clear blue. He was pleased to see several Africans in the crowd. He looked for Gabriel among them but didn’t spot him.

  Itai suddenly caught sight of Yaron, the tall bearded cop who had questioned him. Were they any closer to finding Michal’s murderer, he wondered. He knew the information he’d given them was sketchy. He’d said the same thing to Michal when she outlined for him what she intended to tell the police about the “Banker.” Just like in the complaint she filed against Yariv Ninio with the Bar Association, she produced a litany of allegations but not a shred of evidence. He suspected the police wouldn’t do anything about it, but he didn’t want to say so. He knew that if he convinced her there was no point in going to the cops, she’d revert to her original plan and take a more direct approach. But things had changed. Now the police could no longer ignore him, ignore her. If only Michal didn’t have to die to make them listen.

  At two o’clock in the morning, he’d tossed out the final version of the eulogy. Michal deserved more than a speech filled with clichés about a caring woman who wasn’t afraid to swim against the tide, who lived by her principles and was prepared to pay the price.

  “I want to tell you a story about a man who was saved and the woman who saved him,” Itai began.

  There were a lot of stories he could tell, but in the end he’d decided to talk about Mahadir Alfadel. Itai was in the office with Michal that night when a cabdriver knocked on the door around eight thirty and said he had a “package” for them from Soroka Hospital. They went downstairs and were shocked to see a man in hospital pajamas sitting on the curb. His left arm and leg were paralyzed, and in his right hand he was holding a bag of urine attached to a catheter. Before they had a chance to get any details, the cabdriver waved good-bye and took off. A crumpled piece of paper was sticking out of one of the man’s pockets—his discharge form. It turned out he was an asylum seeker from northern Sudan who had been shot by Egyptian soldiers close to the Israeli border. He’d managed to make it across the border and was picked up by an army unit and transferred to the hospital in Beersheba. Since asylum seekers were only entitled to emergency treatment, the man’s condition was stabilized and he was discharged. There was no one to talk to at Soroka at this hour of the night, and no one left to answer the phone in any government office, either. What were they going to do with him? OMA didn’t have the budget or the facilities to house asylum seekers in need of medical care. They were a tiny organization struggling to keep their head above water. Michal didn’t hesitate for a moment. She took Mahadir home with her, and for the next few weeks she took care of him—gave him food, clothing, and shelter, and made sure he got the medical attention he required. During that time, she got to know him. After all, in Michal’s eyes, everyone was first and foremost a human being, not just another refugee, another story, another problem. At first, the “package” hardly uttered a word, still in shock from the trauma he had undergone. But in time he opened up, and she learned he was a lawyer who had gotten his degree in England and then returned to Sudan to help his people. As soon as he got back to his homeland, he was targeted by the government. Fearing for his life, he fled, making his way to Egypt and from there to Israel.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Itai saw one of the cops talking on his cell phone. He looked away, indignant. The cops are vulgar brutes, he thought to himself.

  Clearing his throat again, he went on to recount the conversation he’d had with Mahadir that very morning. The lawyer had called him from London with a request: “When you go to the cemetery today, say thank you for me one last time to the woman who saved my life.”

  He had planned to say more, to speak about Michal’s unique personality, her militant pacifism, her refusal to learn to drive because she was afraid of hurting someone by accident, how unthinkable it was that a woman like her could be the victim of a violent act, but he was too choked with emotion. He handed the microphone back to Michal’s father.

  Silence fell over the graveside.

  ON his way out of the cemetery, Itai passed the huddle of cops. He noticed that one was a short, slender woman with an attractive face. She reminded him of Michal, maybe because they were both so petite. “You spoke very well,” the policewoman said with the hint of a smile as he walked by.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled, hesitantly returning the smile. Michal’s family had stood there frozen throughout his eulogy. He couldn’t tell what they were thinking.

  Then Itai recognized the unmistakable voice of Yaron, standing next to the policewoman. He snapped out of his reverie. “We’ll be in touch very soon, Fisher,” the tall cop said. There was nothing subtle about the threatening tenor of his words.

  Chapter 19

  ANAT scanned the crowd at the funeral. The cops liked to say that the criminal might not always return to the scene of the crime, but a murderer always shows up at the cemetery to be sure the victim is dead. She estimated the number of people at around two hundred. Unfortunately, she didn’t have her mother’s skill at funeral profiling. She could always tell you exactly how many were there, who had come and who hadn’t bothered to turn up, and the most pertinent fact of all: whose absence was scandalous.

  The sunshine was deceptive. Anat was cold, and she needed to pee.

  Michal’s father recited the prayer for the dead tonelessly. As she told Yochai, there wasn’t much love lost in Michal’s family. Her parents had taken the news of their daughter’s murder stoically. When Anat told them that Michal had been beaten up a few days earlier, her mother said it didn’t surpri
se her. “Michal liked to get under people’s skin,” was how she put it. That was one of the reasons Anat was glad to learn that her parents’ attempt to challenge the validity of the grandmother’s will had been thrown out of court. She was shocked by the way this supposedly “normative” family treated her like a black sheep. But there was another reason, too. Anat knew that Michal had spent most of her life fighting big battles she was destined to lose. She was glad that she’d been able to win at least one of them.

  She was dutifully following Yochai’s orders and concentrating all the team’s efforts on finding the migrant. David told her to do the same thing, although he agreed with her that the theory that he was the murderer was full of holes. In their last phone conversation, David had made it very plain that MK Ehud Regev was putting a lot of pressure on the brass to find the “black brute.” Regev’s sources on the force had leaked to him the information that the neighbor had seen an African man kill Michal. If they pursued other leads at this moment in time, it would only lend credence to Regev’s claim that the police weren’t doing enough to solve the problem, that they were going easy on the migrants in order to ensure quiet on the ground. “Do whatever you have to to find him. We’ll reassess the situation when I get back,” he’d instructed her just before he left for the airport. “We’ll get the right guy in the end, whether Regev likes it or not. And don’t let Yochai get to you. He wants the same thing we do, but he’s got the brass on his back. He’s taking a lot of heat. Keep looking for the African. When I get back I’ll talk to Yochai about expanding the investigation.”

  Anat was pretty sure the man they were looking for was the kid called Gabriel. When she questioned the OMA workers about the people Michal was in close contact with, his name came up again and again. That also fit with the letter “G” at the bottom of the portrait on Michal’s wall.

  They got Gabriel’s address and place of employment from OMA, but when they checked them out, they were told that he’d vanished. No one knew where he’d gone. His boss, Amir, reported that Gabriel had asked to leave work early the day Michal’s body was discovered. According to his coworkers, he’d gotten a phone call just before he left. Anat tried to find out what the call was about and why he’d left so suddenly, but nobody seemed to know. Amir also confirmed that Gabriel had a scar on his left cheek. She didn’t mention the scar to the OMA workers because she didn’t want them to know that Gabriel was the target of their investigation. If they knew he was a suspect, they’d close ranks and refuse to answer any more questions. Everyone she spoke to at the aid organization described Gabriel as a likable, gentle boy with the soul of an artist. They were all very fond of him. Anat didn’t want to set off any alarm bells that might prompt someone to warn him or help him hide from the authorities. People were always suspicious of the police. Regev claimed the cops had an interest in abetting the migrants; the aid workers were convinced of the exact opposite.

  She also read the Immigration Police records on Gabriel. Like every other African infiltrator caught by the Israeli army (in fact, once they were across the border, they actually sat there and waited for the soldiers to come), he’d been taken to the detention camp at Ketziot Prison for questioning, and a hearing had been conducted to determine whether or not he was eligible for deportation. Gabriel claimed to come from Eritrea. He said his mother had urged him to leave the country to avoid conscription into the army, and he’d taken his sister with him because she was at risk of being raped and tortured. His sister had been abducted by their Bedouin guides in Sinai, and he hadn’t seen her since.

  Gabriel was granted a temporary work visa and had to register with the Interior Ministry every three months. The law required asylum seekers to provide a current address and report any change of address. In actuality, few migrants complied with that regulation, and from what Anat understood, no one ever bothered to enforce it.

  In Yaron’s opinion, the fact that Gabriel fled the scene and went into hiding was proof enough that he killed Michal. Anat didn’t agree. People like Gabriel fled at any sign of trouble, whether they were guilty or not. It was just force of habit.

  If, in fact, Gabriel was responsible for Michal’s death, Anat presumed it was the result of a lovers’ quarrel. That was merely her gut feeling for the time being, based mainly on his portrait of Michal. He’d not only made her look much prettier than she was, but he’d drawn her face with a softness and serenity that didn’t jibe with what they’d learned about her. Gabriel saw something in Michal that no one else did, something Anat thought could only come from an intimate relationship.

  “THAT’S her boss, Itai Fisher,” Yaron said, interrupting her thoughts.

  Fisher was a tall, solid man with long hair, big hands, and large, expressive eyes. His voice broke as he spoke about Michal, but his words were articulate despite his obvious emotion. He was wearing jeans and a white shirt that was a bit small on him, like an elementary school kid dressed for a Memorial Day ceremony.

  Anat’s mother thought she’d never go out with a cop because they were barely literate. She couldn’t be more wrong. Almost all the people she worked with had been to college, and most of them had a master’s degree, thanks in part to the boost in salary that came with it. The reason she’d never fallen for a cop was that police work attracted macho types, and she didn’t go for he-men. She’d never be one of the boys, either. On the few occasions when they let her in and she kidded with her colleagues, the conversation inevitably ended with the line, “If you weren’t a lady, I’d have an answer for that.”

  Anat’s phone vibrated while Fisher was talking. She ignored it. It would be rude to answer it in the middle of a funeral, and anyway, she was listening very closely to the story he was telling.

  “Yochai wants to talk to you. He says it’s urgent,” Yaron told her. He had no qualms about answering his phone.

  “Turn that thing off,” she snapped. Everything was urgent with Yochai.

  Yaron threw her a nasty look. Like many of the cops in the district, he didn’t trust her. She was a woman, and a young one at that, and they didn’t believe she was in it for the long haul. Fully aware of their attitude, Anat pulled rank as seldom as possible.

  She continued to scan the crowd, trying to judge their response to Fisher’s moving words. When he passed her on his way out, she couldn’t resist complimenting him on his eulogy.

  From the interviews with the OMA workers, they knew that Gabriel was close to Itai as well as Michal. Consequently, at this stage they’d decided not to question Fisher about Gabriel to be sure he didn’t interfere with the investigation. They’d also discovered that Gabriel was a bone of contention between Itai and Michal, who argued about him like parents fighting over their child’s future. They seemed to fight a lot, but always over issues that came up at work. All their colleagues agreed that the arguments were never personal; they stemmed only from their deep commitment to the people who asked for their help. The general feeling was that Itai usually gave in. In the words of one of the girls who clearly had a crush on him, “He’s such a kind person.”

  Anat didn’t want to draw any hasty conclusions. It was still too early in the investigation. Nevertheless, there was something to be said for Yaron’s dismissal of Fisher’s theory about what happened to Michal. Anat had read the report of Michal’s accusations against the “Banker.” She didn’t have any hard evidence, just speculations and hearsay from people she refused to name, supposedly to protect them. You couldn’t build a case on rumors and the presence of some Israelis in suits around the old bus station. Besides, Anat was pretty sure Michal knew her killer, but by her own account, she had no idea who the “Banker” was or who he was working for.

  Fisher reacted to her compliment with a perplexed look, which she found quite attractive.

  As soon as she left the cemetery, Anat returned Yochai’s call. She’d harbored a vague hope that the scar-faced African kid had turned up, but she was disappointed.

  “David broke his leg in Austria,
” the DC announced with no preamble.

  “What? How? Is he okay?”

  “Major Crimes doesn’t want the case, so we’re stuck with it,” Yochai went on, ignoring her questions. “Can you handle it?”

  “Yes,” she said instinctively.

  Silence. Had she answered too quickly? She could see him sitting at his desk amid the piles of paper, licking his lip.

  “All right, then. It’s yours. Don’t let me down, Nachmias. And keep me informed.” Yochai hung up.

  Anat smiled inwardly. Michal Poleg was her first homicide.

  Chapter 20

  YARIV lay awake in bed. Inbar was sleeping peacefully beside him. Her rhythmic breathing irritated him. He hadn’t been able to sleep like that in days.

  Inbar had no idea what he was going through. She was so naive. She thought he was nervous about the wedding and kept trying to reassure him, saying it was only natural. He’d told her the bruises came from banging into the closet door. He couldn’t use the bicycle excuse with her because she knew his bike had been stolen and he hated rent-a-bikes. She accepted his story without reservation and didn’t ask any questions. There were no raised eyebrows, no cross-examinations, no sarcastic remarks about his clumsiness. As he’d expected, her main concern was whether or not the marks would disappear in time for the wedding. “I want them to take photos in both black-and-white and color,” she’d explained, continuing to nag him with details that only aggravated him even more.