by Liad Shoham
She went into the room of Orit’s eldest son and turned on his computer. Up to now, she’d refrained from using it because she didn’t want to encroach on the family’s privacy any more than necessary, but she couldn’t go on living in the isolation she’d imposed on herself. Ziv could be in trouble.
The headline on the news site she went into told of a man in the north who murdered his wife. She scrolled down slowly, looking for any item that might give her a clue to what happened to Ziv. She didn’t find anything. The night he opened up to her, he said he’d gotten himself mixed up with the mob, but for her own protection he refused to mention names. She could easily read something that had a bearing on his fate and not even know it, she thought.
She heard Gili playing with his stuffed animals in the other room, chatting to himself. How long could she keep him locked up here? Orit and her family would be back from their vacation in three days, and then she’d have no choice. She’d have to leave.
She went into Google and typed “rape north Tel Aviv.” As she’d expected, she got a lot of hits. The attack had been covered by all the media. She’d read about it herself at the time.
She concentrated on the items from the last seven days. Incredibly, she discovered there’d been another rape, and the police were again looking for Ziv. It occurred to her that he might’ve been lying to her the whole time, that he was guilty, and he’d been out raping another girl while she was waiting anxiously for him to return. But she dismissed the idea as soon as she saw the date of the attack. He’d been here with her when it happened.
Tears welled up in her eyes. What had they done to deserve this? How come Ziv was the prime suspect in two rapes?
Merav sat in front of the computer weeping uncontrollably. She felt lost, helpless. If Ziv hadn’t been so adamant about keeping the cops out of it, she’d call them right now and tell them that he’d been with her, lying beside her in bed when they claimed he was raping a woman in Tel Aviv. But Ziv had made her promise she wouldn’t involve the police.
She was about to switch off the computer when her eye caught the headline of an interview with Inspector Eli Nachum. Ziv had told her about the detective with the vicious piercing eyes who tricked him into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit. Skimming through the interview, she saw that Nachum was now saying that Ziv was innocent and he’d been wrong all along.
The flicker of optimism she felt when she first found the article died out very quickly when she read it more carefully. She learned not only that Nachum had been kicked off the force but that they rejected his opinion out of hand. In the official eyes of the police, Ziv was the rapist. A tremor ran through her body when she read they were now mounting a nationwide search for him.
Merav turned off the computer and started pacing the floor. All she wanted was for Ziv to come back so they could go to the police together and she could tell them he was with her the night of the rape.
Her intuition was right. Something very bad had happened. She knew that now.
She wanted desperately to help him, but she didn’t know how. What could she do? Then she remembered the letter he’d placed in her hand before he left. Should she open it?
WITH trembling hands, she dialed the first number on the list she got from Information. It turned out there was more than one Eli Nachum in the Tel Aviv area. She prayed she wasn’t making a terrible mistake and putting Ziv in even greater danger.
But she couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. She was placing all her faith in the detective. After all, he’d made it very clear that he didn’t believe Ziv was guilty. And it wasn’t like she was calling the police. The papers said he’d been booted out.
“Stop calling me, Giladi. I have no intention of talking to you, and you can quote me on that in your fucking rag.” The voice at the other end was furious.
“Is this Eli Nachum?” she asked.
“Yes. Sorry about that. I thought you were someone else.”
“Inspector Eli Nachum?”
The longer she spoke with him, the more she began to trust him, despite her initial apprehensions. He sounded deeply sorry for what he’d done to Ziv and she heard, or imagined she heard, a desire to help that was entirely genuine.
“You have any idea where I can find him?” he asked.
She looked at the letter she’d just read. She was still reeling from what it said. The mob had forced Ziv to plant a bomb under a woman’s car, he didn’t know who. “Don’t open this letter unless you and Gili are in danger,” he’d warned her before he left.
“Merav? Are you still there?” Was she doing the right thing? For the moment, at least, she and Gili were safe. Nothing had happened to make her feel they were in any imminent danger. And he’d made her promise she’d only use the letter as a last resort.
“He left me a note with the name of the man he went to see,” she said finally, her heart pounding. It didn’t seem wise to tell him everything. If the letter fell into the wrong hands, it could have serious consequences for Ziv. She didn’t know Eli Nachum and couldn’t be sure what he’d do with it. She had to use her head. To play it safe, she wouldn’t tell him about Faro.
“Who is it?”
“David Meshulam,” she said, her voice shaking as she uttered the name of the man mentioned several times in Ziv’s letter as the one who gave him his instructions.
Chapter 49
SERGEANT Ohad Barel was very pleased with himself. At last, all the pieces were falling into place in the investigation he was leading. He’d had to go through what Nachum called “legal shit” to get the warrant, but he finally had what he wanted: a record of the calls Nevo’s ex-wife made from her office on the day he disappeared. A few minutes before leaving work, she’d called the cell phone of a friend by the name of Orit Berger. The call had lasted four minutes and fifteen seconds. Berger lived in the south, but he found out from Border Control that she and her family were currently overseas. There was no doubt in Barel’s mind why Merav had called her.
Now he was on his way south to bring Merav in for questioning. With any luck, he would find Nevo there too.
He drove at high speed, enjoying the fine weather and the company of Shiri, the policewoman on his squad whom he’d brought along for the ride. He’d had his eye on her for a while, and he had the impression it might be mutual. A day that started out so well was bound to end well too.
Just three minutes after he turned onto the southern highway, his cell phone rang. It was Dr. Dan Mizrachi from Ichilov. “Dana Aronov has regained consciousness. You can talk to her,” he said blandly, as if he were speaking about the weather.
“What? When?” he asked excitedly.
“Yesterday,” the doctor answered drily.
“Why didn’t you say so before?”
Dr. Mizrachi apologized. “Sorry. My fault. We’re very busy here. I’d advise you to get here as soon as possible,” he added before hanging up.
What was he supposed to do now? Navon told him to do whatever it took to bring Nevo in, and his gut was telling him Merav knew where to find her ex-husband. On the other hand, Dr. Mizrachi told him to get to the hospital quickly. Aronov’s testimony was critical to the case. He couldn’t risk missing out on it.
“We don’t have any choice. We have to go back to Tel Aviv,” Shiri said, smiling at him. After cursing the doctor one last time, he turned the car around. If everything worked out as he hoped, Aronov would ID Nevo as her attacker, and he’d head south again that night to finish what he’d started.
BAREL was excited. This was his time to shine. Just as he’d expected, the description Dana Aronov gave matched Adi Regev’s description of her attacker. More to the point, it fit Ziv Nevo to a tee.
Like everyone else, he’d read the bizarre interview Nachum had given to Dori Engel. He didn’t see eye to eye with him one bit. And he couldn’t figure out why Nachum had decided to go to the press w
ith his crazy ideas. Nothing good would come out of it, not for the case, and definitely not for Nachum himself.
He remembered what his former boss had said about a lineup: that it was like baking a cake, you had to follow the recipe. And since this was the first cake he’d ever baked by himself, he’d decided to go by the book and conduct an unimpeachable photo lineup. First he’d gone to the DA and gotten a green light: if they didn’t have Nevo, there was no legal impediment to presenting the victim with a photo array. For the record, he’d left a brief message on the cell phone of Assaf Rosen, Nevo’s attorney, informing him they were planning to conduct another lineup and asking him to contact him. He just didn’t bother to leave a number. So far, Rosen hadn’t called back.
He looked over the pictures numbered one through eight that were pinned to the corkboard. All the faces were similar to Nevo’s. He wondered if he hadn’t gone too far in his determination to follow the recipe impeccably. The faces might resemble each other too closely. But he put that thought aside. In his interview with Aronov, he’d asked her several times to describe her assailant, and each time she’d given him the answers he was looking for. He was convinced she’d do the same at the moment of truth and point to Nevo. He was so positive that he’d even resisted the temptation to “accidentally” leave a picture of Nevo in her room.
The technician taping the proceedings signaled that he was ready. Barel entered the room. He thought he saw tears forming in Dana’s eyes, their clear blue intensified by the bruises and swelling on her face. “Practically a medical miracle,” Dr. Mizrachi called it when he described how she’d woken up from the coma. Now he was standing by her bed in case the experience of identifying her rapist had an adverse effect on his patient’s condition.
Barel stood next to Aronov and explained, for the record, what was going to happen. When he was done, he spun the corkboard faceup, more like a TV entertainer than a police officer, and held it where she could easily see it. He kept his eyes trained on her as she scanned one picture after the other, concentrating so hard that he was actually following her eye movements. Number one, number two. His heart nearly stopped when she quickly passed over number five, Nevo, and went on to the next one.
Finally, she raised her eyes to him. He could see by her expression that she was unable to ID the rapist. His stomach hurt. The last thing he needed was for the lineup to fail to produce a result. Navon was breathing down his neck. If he didn’t bring him Nevo’s head on a platter, he’d take the blame for the screwup. He’d tried too hard, the pictures were too much alike, they’d say.
Aronov continued to look at him in silence. “Take your time. There’s no reason to hurry, no pressure. I know this is hard for you,” he said, making an effort to keep his voice calm.
“I don’t know . . . I don’t recognize any of them.”
Barel’s heart fell. He was beginning to think he was suffering from bad karma, that all the problems he was encountering were punishment for what he’d done to Nachum.
“Take another look,” he coaxed, shifting slightly so that his back was to the camera.
As she brought her eyes back down to the board, he passed his finger inconspicuously over the photos, pausing for a fraction of a second at number five before moving on. She looked up at him and he gazed back at her meaningfully. That’s the one, point to that one, he screamed silently. Please, please, just do it. My career is on the line, his eyes said.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, turning her head aside.
Barel drew in a sharp breath. He could hear Nachum’s voice in his head: never take anything for granted, always have a Plan B in case something goes wrong. He cursed himself for the overconfidence that had bitten him in the ass.
“Please take another look at number five. Is that the man who raped you?” Barel found it hard to keep his voice steady. He knew the risk he was taking. An ID based on a single photo carried much less weight than the result of a photo array, but it was better than nothing. In the present circumstances, he’d grasp at any straw not to leave here empty-handed.
Dana focused on the photo of Nevo.
“I’m sorry. That’s not him,” she said finally.
“How can you be sure?” he said, regretting the question the moment the words were out of his mouth.
“His face was pitted. He had a broader noise, thinner lips.”
Chapter 50
RACHEL Zuriel swallowed the pill without water. The Tel Aviv district attorney had read about the danger of pain pills, especially the Optalgin she took regularly. She’d tried to cut down, but the headache that started after her meeting with Galit Lavie left her no choice.
She’d summoned Lavie to her office to tell her about her meeting with Shuki Borochov and the information he claimed to have about Ziv Nevo. Lavie was in charge of the Nevo case, and even beyond that, Zuriel respected the young ADA’s opinion. She was astonished to learn from her that the second victim had woken up and they’d conducted a photo lineup in the hospital, but she hadn’t fingered Nevo. In fact, when they’d pointed him out to her, she’d said she was certain he wasn’t the man who raped her.
It looked like Eli Nachum was right. Nevo didn’t rape Dana Aronov and there was a good chance he didn’t rape Adi Regev either. They’d been chasing the wrong man, and in their misplaced zeal, they’d gotten him convicted of a felony he didn’t commit.
“Rachel, I’m asking you to include Nevo in the deal with Faro,” Galit said after hearing Borochov’s offer.
“Why would I do that?” she asked in surprise, wondering if she should tell Galit she’d had no intention of taking the deal even when she thought Nevo was guilty. Now that they knew he was innocent, what interest did it serve to bring him in?
“We owe it to him, Rachel,” Lavie went on when she got no reply. “We’ve done him an injustice. And it’s very likely that Faro’s people are more involved than just knowing where he is. They’re probably holding him. There’s no telling what they’ll do if you inform Borochov that we know Nevo’s innocent and the cops have no further interest in him. They might very well decide that killing him is the best way to keep him quiet.”
“I think you’re exaggerating, Galit,” she said, although she knew the ADA could be right. No one knew more about Faro’s organization than Lavie. Just a few months ago she’d gotten a murder conviction against one of his soldiers, Yariv Cohen. They’d leaned on him hard and tried to seduce him with all sorts of perks, but he refused to give up his boss. He got a life sentence. Lavie had received death threats during the trial, but she hadn’t backed down. She was a brave woman.
“We owe it to him, Rachel,” she repeated. “He’s got a little boy. If it weren’t for us and our mistakes, none of this would be happening to him.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Zuriel said sympathetically, looking the young attorney in the eye. “But the chances of something happening to Nevo are very slim. It’s just speculation. What we have to consider . . .”
“No, Rachel. When it comes to people like them, it’s not just speculation. And even if it is, he’s the one who’ll pay the price if I’m right, and he doesn’t deserve that.”
Zuriel closed her eyes. Her head was still throbbing painfully. Beyond her closed door she could hear the noise of the office, people chatting, telephones ringing. She’d promised Galit she’d think about what she said.
She’d never admit it, in fact, the very thought made her cringe in shame, but deep down she hoped Faro’s organization would make the problem called Ziv Nevo go away. Both the police and the prosecution had come under heavy attack in recent years. The public was out for blood. They didn’t understand that the barrage was instigated by criminal elements. Even her best friends believed the DA’s Office fabricated evidence, hounded politicians for no good reason, and in general had too much power and regularly abused it. The Ziv Nevo fiasco would be another blow to their reputation. H
e’d talk to the press, give in-depth interviews to the media about how he was coerced into confessing to a rape he didn’t commit, how he was incarcerated and tortured, how his life was ruined. And they’d have to hang their heads in shame once again, to come up with some lame excuse, to admit they were wrong, but of course it was all done in good faith.
She dialed Borochov’s number.
“It turns out Nevo didn’t do the rapes,” she said, telling him about the photo lineup arranged for Dana Aronov in order to remove any suspicion he might have that she was trying to outfox him: attempting to get her hands on Nevo without giving Faro anything in return.
Borochov said nothing.
“The offer of seven years still stands,” she said. It was her job to look out for the public interest. Even Lavie would come to see that in time. She was a smart girl.
Borochov continued to remain silent. She didn’t like that. Had there been further developments since he left her office?
“In view of what your client is accused of, I think . . . ,” she began, but he cut her off. “Seven years isn’t something we’d even consider.”
Now it was Zuriel’s turn to be silent. She’d handled countless plea bargains. He’d throw out a number, she’d counter with a higher one, and in the end they’d meet in the middle.
“I spoke with Faro. We’ll take our chances in court,” Borochov announced.
She waited, ready to pounce the moment he gave her an opening to continue their horse trading, but he said nothing.
“So I guess I’ll see you in court,” she said finally. “I have to admit I’m a bit surprised you’re choosing to waste everyone’s time and risk a much harsher sentence, but it’s your decision. Not a very wise one in my opinion, but that’s your prerogative.” She was doing her best to sound confident.