by By Jon Land
“And my investigation?” Danielle asked.
“Murdered children here and in the West Bank? There is no investigation.”
Danielle swallowed hard, feeling her pride forced down with the air. “Just check the results of Beth Jacober’s autopsy, the real cause of her death.”
“I have.”
“You...”
Baruch pulled a manila folder from his desk and let it flop to the blotter where his elbows had worn thick indentations in the cardboard. “It’s right here. You can read it yourself if you want, but I’ll save you the trouble: Beth Jacober died of massive head trauma caused by the single car accident she was involved in. Her blood alcohol was one-point-five. Satisfied?”
Danielle looked at the folder sitting on Baruch’s desk. “But...”
“You’re due in administration in twenty minutes,” Baruch said, holding back a satisfied grin. “Don’t be late.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 31
I
hope you’re hungry, Inspector,” Colonel Nabril al-Asi greeted, waiting until his wife and children had boarded the cable car before ushering Ben inside.
“I didn’t know you were bringing your family,” Ben said, uncomfortable, as the colonel’s youngest two sons and daughter pushed each other for the best view of the Mount of Temptation they would soon be ascending.
“Relax, Inspector, this is part of my resolution to spend more time with my family. The reason I never had any time for them before was because I was all business. Now, sometimes, they accompany me on my business.”
Ben realized the car was empty except for himself and al-Asi’s family. The colonel’s wife was doing her best to make peace between his children. She was younger than he had guessed and more attractive, dressed in Western-style clothing every bit as fashionable as her husband’s European designer suits.
“And sometimes my work accompanies them,” al-Asi continued, leading Ben to the opposite end of the twenty-passenger cable car. “Have a seat, Inspector.”
Ben had barely sat down when the cable car jerked forward and then settled into a smooth ride up the barren, rocky slope. He knew the Mount of Temptation got its name from being the place where Christian theologians teach Christ withstood temptation by Satan after his baptism in the Jordan River. On the terraced cliff directly above the cable car, hidden by caves where Jesus purportedly fasted for more than a month, a French restaurant was now in operation.
“You know,” al-Asi said, reading Ben’s mind, “this was all made possible by the Authority negotiating a deal with the Greek Orthodox Church which controls the Mount. I wonder if they realized what they were getting into. Another ten years and our little district of Jericho will have ten thousand hotel rooms and enough tourists to fill every one of them.”
“Something to look forward to ...”
“Have you eaten in this restaurant, Inspector?”
“Not yet.”
“You must try the musakhana,” al-Asi said, referring to a popular Beduoin chicken dish. “Or the mansaf.”
Ben recalled the sweet smell of seasonings that would linger in the house for days after his mother made that spicy meal. “It’s a little early in the day for rice and beef, Colonel.”
“Precisely the reason why you can look forward to crepes, fancy egg dishes, French pastry—all yours for the asking.”
“I didn’t know the restaurant opened for breakfast.”
“It doesn’t. The proprietors generously made an exception today.”
Before them the perfectly beveled and shiny face of the Mount drew closer. Up close it looked like dark, dull ice thirsting for the sun. Untouched by man and barely hospitable to his presence, if the grinding of the car’s cables overhead was any indication.
Al-Asi turned his gaze back to the front of the cable car, where his children had at last made peace. “You’ve never met my wife, have you, Inspector?”
“No.”
“Then this morning will be the perfect opportunity for us all to become better acquainted. A pity Pakad Barnea couldn’t join us. I should have given you more notice.”
“It wouldn’t have helped.”
“Problems between you, I gather.”
“Just the usual.”
“And which usual is that, Inspector? The usual where you visited each other regularly, or the more recent usual where you don’t see each other at all?”
“You’ve been keeping tabs on me.”
The boyish glint flickered in al-Asi’s grayish eyes. “For your own good, of course. And Pakad Barnea’s. We wouldn’t want any enemies to take advantage of a perceived vulnerability.”
“And have they tried?”
Al-Asi shrugged noncommittally. “If you haven’t noticed, then what’s the difference?”
The cable car squealed on, halfway to the summit now.
“Anything new on the disc recovered at the soccer stadium?” Ben wondered.
“You mean the disc you recovered. Sometimes you are much too modest, Inspector.”
“Fasil’s hand-off was obvious.”
Al-Asi frowned. “I wish the contents of that disc were equally obvious. But unfortunately they still don’t seem to make any sense. The disc certainly doesn’t seem connected to the most wanted terrorist in Palestine.”
“Not anymore, Colonel.”
“Thanks to your expert marksmanship. I haven’t forgotten our trip to the shooting range. We’ll go next week. The Israelis have sent us a new shipment of pistols I’ve been wanting to try out.”
Ben gazed out the cable car’s window to check their progress up the mountain. “What more have you learned about the Ashawi family, Colonel?”
Al-Asi slid a little closer to Ben on the seat. “They have not left the West Bank and the only relatives they have live in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. Their family has no history of operations against Israel or links to Hamas. Not a single registered arrest by either us or the Israeli authorities.”
“What about their daughter Zeina?”
“Pretty much what you told me. An honor student who’s already won scholarships to a number of American universities. First in her class and perfect attendance in school until eight days ago.”
“When her friends from the collaborative school she attended for a semester started dying.”
Al-Asi frowned. “I can’t tell you whether the Ashawis have moved in with their relatives at Aida; I’m afraid my contacts in refugee camps are not what they used to be. When the fences came down, my informants went with them. In any case, you will set off with a full stomach this morning, Inspector. Which is more than I can say for the residents of Aida.”
Ben’s cell phone rang and he snatched it from his pocket, hoping it was Danielle on the other end of the line. He excused himself and slid away from Colonel al-Asi.
“Hello.”
“Good morning, Inspector,” a husky voice greeted.
“Mr. Najarian?”
“I hadn’t heard from you, thought I’d give you a call before I headed back to the States.”
“How did you get my number?”
“I’m in the security business, remember?”
Ben stole a sidelong glance at the colonel. “Next time just ask me for it.”
“Have you given any thought to my offer?”
“I haven’t had time yet.”
“I’m thinking about you to head up our Special Investigations unit. A private force of detectives paid to solve crimes botched or ignored by local authorities. I could show you the projections. Do you have some time?”
“Not today.”
“Oh well. You have my number in Detroit, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s talk soon.”
Ben pressed the end button and turned back to al-Asi. “I’m sorry, Colonel.”
“For what, Inspector?” Al-Asi smiled contently. “You haven’t taken the job yet.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 32
D
A male supervisor with a bird’s nest of curly hair and a mouthful of gum who looked all of twenty-five had escorted Danielle to her desk and promised to return presently to brief her on her duties. He wore a white shirt with faded tentacle-like ink stains running down the left side in spite of his plastic pocket protector. He had left her almost an hour ago now, during which time Danielle had busied herself by carving neat patterns with a pocket knife on the underside of her top desk drawer. She was amazed by how much the juvenile response, like that of a wrongly disciplined child, satisfied her. But that made her think of her own child again and sadness quickly engulfed her emotions.
Again and again she replayed her conversation with Commander Moshe Baruch in her head. He had finally gotten the upper hand with her; Danielle had made it so easy she began to wonder if he hadn’t set this whole scenario up. More likely he had just waited for her to make the kind of mistake he knew would be inevitable, because he knew her.
Somehow it was the autopsy results on the exhumed body of Beth Jacober that Danielle kept coming back to. Baruch said he had read the report and insisted it had shed no new light on the girl’s death. Danielle was certain he’d been telling the truth, just as she was certain that Beth Jacober had been murdered. The autopsy report should have shown that, which meant it had been altered.
By whom?
Someone with a powerful reach, that was for sure. Someone with a very good reason to want the systematic execution of high school classmates to remain unnoticed.
The phone on Danielle’s desk rang, startling her. She cleared her throat and reached for it, then pulled her hand back, having no idea of what she might be asked and what she was supposed to say in return. She made a mental note to call Dr. Barr and give him her new work number.
The phone kept ringing. Some of Danielle’s coworkers began to turn her way.
Finally she picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Chief Inspector Barnea?”
“Not anymore.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You know? Who is this? How did you get my number? I don’t even know my number.”
“I need to see you.”
Danielle gazed around the room. Workers everywhere with their dreams tucked into the brown lunch bags they hauled to work with them.
“Does this have something to do with an administrative problem?”
“You were investigating the murder of Paul Hessler’s son, yes?”
“I’m afraid I can’t—”
“Please, this is for your own good.”
“All right. I was assigned to that investigation for a very brief period, a single afternoon. Until someone else took over.”
“That’s what we need to talk about.”
Danielle leaned forward. “What do you know about this murder?”
“That it’s connected to others.”
Danielle reined herself in, imagining Moshe Baruch listening on the other end of the line biting his fleshy lip to hold back his laughter. Danielle Barnea, the old investigative fire horse, charging off at the first sound of a bell straight into professional oblivion.
“How is it connected?” she posed tentatively.
“I told you, we need to meet.”
“Not until you tell me who you are.”
“My name is Asher Bain. Until last night I was chief aide to deputy chief of staff of the army, General Efrain Janush.”
“What happened?”
“He was murdered.”
Danielle looked around the room for the gum-chewing, wild-haired supervisor and spotted him checking items off on a clipboard, having forgotten she existed. “Where would you like to meet?”
* * * *
CHAPTER 33
F
or Paul Hessler, the funeral of his son passed in a blur. The hordes in attendance, overflowing the temple auditorium, were of no comfort to him. Many of them did not even know Ari, or knew him only cursorily through business. They had flown here from far and wide, not out of grief so much as an obligation to Paul himself. Their condolences were expressed honestly behind warm, dry handshakes. But most were here because they worried what their absence might look like.
The truly grieving, Ari’s lifelong friends and fraternity brothers from college, the young people he worked with in the company, were the ones Paul wanted to be around. They truly knew his son; the loss they suffered, thus, as real as his own. Paul came almost to detest the numbing recitals of regret; there would be nothing but these for the next three days and nights of shiva, the Jewish memorial tradition.
Ari’s mother Elaine, whom Paul had not seen since they divorced, seemed at first to have changed, enough so Paul had to wonder if she had given up drinking. But at the gathering after the funeral she downed wine glass after wine glass, the red and white mixing in her head to leave her in the dull fog he remembered all too well. She leaned on her new husband through the reception’s final hour, the man constantly checking the Rolex watch that Paul Hessler’s money had bought him.
Paul’s other children, meanwhile, provided a sense of solidarity and many obligatory smiles and hugs that left him smelling of whatever perfume his daughters had donned. He found himself concentrating as much as possible on the grandchildren he seldom saw, wondering if there might be an Ari among them, a namesake to whom he could someday entrust the future of Hessler Industries.
In a room jammed with milling, well-meaning people, Paul Hessler had never felt more alone. The only thing that rivaled the last few days for desperate loneliness was the trek he had made through Poland after his escape from the labor camp outside Lodz near the end of 1944. He remembered each moment and mile with a clarity that had never faded with time. Always pushing on, telling himself another hour, another mile, before he could rest.
While he could escape the labor camp in the war’s final days, though, he could not escape the death of his son. At night, when sleep wouldn’t come, he tried to apologize out loud to Ari for being responsible for his death. There were some things a father never shares even with his son and the greatest of these had come back to haunt Paul Hessler.
An old, arthritic man coming at him outside Ben-Gurion Airport. A ghost who hadn’t given up breathing yet. After all these years ...
Why? And how, in God’s name, had he found out?
Paul had intended to explain everything to Ari in time, had even planned the time and place.
At the castle. Upon its completion.
Over three years ago, Paul Hessler had struck a deal with the State of New Jersey to lease for one dollar per year a large tract of land in the cliffs of Palisades State Park overlooking the Hudson River north of the George Washington Bridge. On this land he had reconstructed a medieval castle that would be open to the public and, perhaps, someday turned into a museum modeled after the Metropolitan’s Cloisters located across the Hudson.
Every time Paul saw the nearly completed castle, he viewed it as it had been fifty-seven years before when finding it in the woods beyond Leczyca, Poland, had saved his life following his escape from the camp. That was how he would have started telling the story to Ari, with the part that was already known. The part that was a prime component of the Hessler legend.
Upon learning that the Polish government was about to raze its crumbling structure, Paul Hessler bought the castle and had the limestone blocks that formed its walls taken apart, numbered, and crated for shipping to New York, and then reassembled along the cliffs of Palisades State Park. Much of the original structure was gone in the late fall of 1944; even less of it remained today. The surrounding wall had collapsed into piles of rubble and the inner gardens had been a memory since the castle was abandoned during the Protestant uprising of the sixteenth century. The ancient struc
ture constructed in the fourteenth century originally had six towers, but only four remained in any shape to rebuild. The pink marble pilasters and carved stone columns were crumbling yet still could be restored for a price only Paul Hessler was willing to pay.