The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything

by D. A. Mishani

  He thought the meeting would end with this, but Shrapstein suddenly asked him, “How old is your witness, do you know?” and Avraham didn’t understand his question at first. He didn’t remember the exact age of the neighbor from the second floor or his name, and the pages on which he wrote his notes at the scene remained on the table in his office. “He told this story to me, too, yesterday,” Shrapstein continued. “He grabbed me on the stairs when I got there. He’s seventy-plus. And had just woken up when the whole thing happened.”

  Vahaba also didn’t understand what Shrapstein was trying to say and asked him, “So what?” but Shrapstein turned directly to Avraham as he continued. “Did you maybe clarify with him if he usually wears glasses?” he asked. “And did he manage to put them on before he saw the policeman through the hole in the door for less than half a second?”

  Vahaba and Lital Levy looked at Avraham, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t ask the neighbor a thing about glasses. And didn’t remember if the witness was wearing glasses when he questioned him yesterday.

  Saban was detained at the Tel Aviv district headquarters and his meeting with Avraham postponed until the afternoon.

  Avraham returned to his office and for a few minutes merely stared at the construction site visible from his window and the cars passing by on Fichman Street and waited for the phone to ring. He studied the photos from the rape file again and examined David Danon’s face, and since the phone didn’t ring he himself called the forensics lab at the national police headquarters but they still didn’t have news about the samples taken from the body and from various items in the apartment. He asked why the delay, and the clerk said to him, “Are you serious? Do you think this is the only case we’re working on here?”

  Other files were sitting on his desk as well, at various stages of progress, but he couldn’t open any other file. He tried to recall if the neighbor from the second floor wore glasses during their conversation. The investigation was being conducted without him at the lab in Jerusalem and in interrogation rooms on the two floors below, and he did nothing concrete and wondered if this is how a division commander should direct a murder investigation, or in fact, if Ilana Lis would direct it this way. The first stage in solving a case is selecting the investigators correctly, she always told him, but he wanted to question Leah Yeger’s daughter again himself and speak with her son, whom he still hadn’t seen, and sit in the interrogation room opposite the rapist’s relatives. Mainly he wanted to return to the murder scene, even though on that day he still didn’t know what to look for. And in the meantime he restrained himself and didn’t call Ilana. When the chemotherapy treatments began she informed him that she was not willing to have anyone other than her family members accompany her through the process, and when Avraham tried to understand why, she said to him, “Because I don’t want anyone seeing or even hearing me in the state I’m going to be in. Not even you.”

  The wooden pipe that Marianka had bought him in Brussels was in a drawer, and he took it out and held it unlit in his mouth. After he decided to quit smoking he tried to use it a few times when he was alone in the office, but it went out over and over and he finally gave up, but every so often would bite it between his teeth in order to relax. Afterward he went down to the cafeteria and bought himself a cheese sandwich and ate it in his office while reading the brief reports that Shrapstein had sent from questioning Leah Yeger’s son and daughter, and which he found in his in-box when he returned.

  The son claimed that he hadn’t been in contact with his mother for a few months, and thus couldn’t say a thing about her life, if she had relations and if she was involved in disputes of any sort. According to the witness, Shrapstein wrote, he had no conflicts with his mother, including conflicts over the inheritance or some other financial matter. He was thirty-six years old and was employed as a superintendent of a high school in the north. Yesterday afternoon he was serving army reserve duty and he there received the message about his mother. When Shrapstein asked him when was the last time he spoke or met with his mother, the son claimed he hadn’t spoke to her in months and didn’t remember the exact date on which they spoke. Afterward he was asked if in his opinion someone wanted to harm his mother, and he said there’s no doubt that it’s one of the rapist’s relatives. The daughter, by contrast, had a close connection with her mother. They met a few times a week and spoke on the phone at least once a day. Despite this, she also didn’t know if her mother was involved in a dispute of any sort and claimed that to the best of her knowledge no one wanted to harm her.

  Avraham read the reports twice and then tried to speak with Shrapstein on the phone, without success. What bothered him about the reports was the gap between the fact that the son hadn’t spoken with his mother for a long time and his conviction that he knows who attacked her. And there was an additional thing, which Avraham wrote to himself in pen at the bottom of the report in order to remember to ask Shrapstein: How is it that her son wasn’t in contact with her despite the rape she went through?

  Ma’alul had tried to call him twice since the morning meeting, but in the end they met in the cafeteria, accidentally. Avraham went down to eat lunch a little before two, even though he wasn’t hungry, and Ma’alul entered the room a few minutes after and sat down next to him. Ma’alul ordered for himself a large cheese pastry with an egg, and even before taking a bite of it asked Avraham if he could taste the cooked chicken and potatoes that made him nauseous and that he left on his plate. He asked Avraham, “Did Shrapstein see her kids already?” And Avraham nodded. And only when Ma’alul continued as if nothing had happened and asked him, “And did you meet with Saban? Is he interested in the case at all?” Avraham said to him what he already wanted to tell him during the meeting.

  “You should have updated me yesterday about the rapist’s son. It’s a shame you waited until the meeting this morning.”

  Ma’alul set the fork in his hand down. He said, “Why? It was late and I knew we were going to meet first thing this morning,” and Avraham said to him, “Because I needed to know that yesterday and not discover it at the meeting like everyone else.”

  Eliyahu returned the plate with the chicken to Avraham and wiped his mouth with a napkin. It seemed to Avraham that he had been hurt by his words when he said quietly, “Avi, what happened to you? I understand that there’s a lot of pressure on you, but you do know you’re not working alone, right? That you have people to rely on? You know very well that I can’t immediately report everything that happens and I definitely don’t think I need to report everything like this to you. Did I try to hide something from you?”

  His deep-set eyes searched for Avraham’s gaze and didn’t find it. Avraham remembered the dream in which Ilana hid the name of the murderer from him and thought that perhaps because of this he wanted to call her so badly, when Ma’alul continued and said, “Please conduct this investigation with peace of mind and with the team, Avi. And do me a favor, let’s not start dealing in bullshit, okay? This isn’t the first case for any of us, and it isn’t the first time we’re working together, either. So let’s work freely like we know how.”

  But this was his first murder case! Perhaps there’s no difference between an investigation like this and any other investigation? Nevertheless there was a difference, because in most of the cases he investigated the victims could speak, and even if they didn’t know everything or hid details, he relied on the fact that he’d succeed in reading between the lines and the lies, and he couldn’t ask Leah Yeger a thing, despite the open eye and gaping mouth that was frozen as if in the middle of a breath or an effort to tell him something.

  Ma’alul waited for his answer and Avraham pushed the plate in his direction and tried to appease him when he asked, “When did you work until?” And was stunned when Ma’alul responded that he was at the scene until two in the morning and didn’t return home but rather went to sleep at the station in order not to be late to the meeting. “And it was actually nice,” he said. “Do you know
how long it’s been since I slept here? I felt thirty years younger.”

  It was strange, how each of them responded to the case differently. Ma’alul was right when he said that Avraham was dealing in bullshit. Throughout the day he waited for a call from the lab that didn’t come, for a meeting with Benny Saban that was postponed again and again.

  When his meeting with Saban finally started, a bit after four, Avraham was still under the influence of the conversation with Ma’alul. Saban blinked at him from behind his wide desk when he said, “You understand that it will be a disaster if we don’t solve this case quickly?” And Avraham nodded. “Did you see Yediot and Haaretz today? They’re coming down hard on the police commissioner because of the assassinations we haven’t solved and the inquiries into the police officers’ sexual harassment cases. You understand that this is an investigation that he’ll take personally, right, Avi?”

  “He” was the police commissioner. Avraham said to Saban quietly, “We’ll sol–” when Saban interrupted his words, adding, “And the worst is that damn rape, Avi. That this woman was raped and now she’s been murdered. Do you think there’s a connection between the incidents?”

  He still had nothing to share with Saban, but he said that there were good findings at the scene and then he told him about the threats from the rapist’s family. If it becomes clear that this is the angle, then there’s a chance to solve it quickly: David Danon’s DNA was in the police database, and if a relative of his assaulted Leah Yeger they’d know it within twenty-four hours at the most. Also if Leah Yeger was assaulted by one of her family members. Saban asked if these were the main angles of the investigation, and Avraham answered that for now yes, but he doesn’t exclude the possibility that she was murdered during a burglary gone wrong. Since the afternoon, Shrapstein had been going over burglary cases in the area and was trying to obtain a list of laborers who worked at construction sites in the area, and intelligence agents in the district were searching addicts and dealers in stolen property for the contents of Yeger’s bag, primarily the credit cards and cell phone. If the burglar is a known criminal, it’s reasonable to assume that his identifying marks are in the police database, too.

  “Do you think that it could be her son?” Saban suddenly asked, and Avraham said, “Don’t know.” Something in the things the son said to Shrapstein bothered him, but because he hadn’t met him himself he couldn’t say what. And he again thought about the fact that the son was the one who confidently directed them to the rapist’s family members.

  Without a doubt Leah Yeger wouldn’t have hesitated to open the door for her son.

  Avraham didn’t say a thing about this aloud, but Saban said to him, “So let’s exhaust these angles for now. That’s what’s most available to us, no? And let’s extend the gag order until we have a suspect in hand. I don’t want any detail of the investigation to leak out and especially not the fact that she was raped and that afterward there were threats made against her. Do you realize how we’d look?”

  Avraham stood to leave his office when Saban recalled what he had told him yesterday during the phone call at the scene, and asked him, “And what about the policeman who was there? Do you know yet?” And Avraham responded not yet.

  “You haven’t managed to locate him yet?”

  “According to the log there wasn’t a prior message to the call center, and no police officer was sent to the building before the message at four thirty. The eye witness might be mistaken.”

  “And if he wasn’t mistaken?”

  If he wasn’t mistaken, then Leah Yeger’s murderer might not be a relative of David Danon or her son but a policeman instead. And another possibility is that during the murder, or a short time after it, someone contacted the call center and a beat cop was sent to the scene of the incident, and someone is now trying to hide this and even erased the call from the log.

  Saban was astounded by this possibility even more than by the possibility that Leah Yeger was murdered by a cop. “Why would someone do a thing like that?” he asked, and Avraham said, “If someone contacted the call center and a policeman arrived at the scene and knocked on the door and then turned around and left without doing a thing while the murderer was inside the apartment and while Yeger was maybe alive, he has good reason to hide it.”

  Saban didn’t want to think about this at all. He closed his eyes for a moment and then rose and closed the door to his room.

  “Let’s hope that this isn’t what happened, Avi. Or that your witness is mistaken,” he said quietly when he returned to sit in his chair. Afterward he asked Avraham to place his cell phone on the table to ensure that he wasn’t recording the conversation. “This entire conversation is off the record, Avi. From my perspective it didn’t take place, not this part of it, is that clear? You did not inform me that a policeman may have been there and I knew nothing about it, do you understand?”

  It took Avraham time to understand what Saban was telling him, because during the time he spoke Avraham was thinking about something else. He saw in his imagination the beat cop going up to the apartment and knocking on the door, and on the other side he could picture Leah Yeger struggling with a man who had attacked her and trying to call for help. A man who was perhaps her son. “If a policeman was there during the time she was murdered, the entire district is in deep trouble,” Saban continued. “And even if that’s true, no one’s saying that we have to concentrate on that now, correct? For now that’s a marginal detail in the investigation, and our task is to find the murderer and not the policeman who perhaps screwed up. Are you with me, Avi? Do you agree with me?”

  Only in the evening, when Avraham returned home and reconstructed the conversation with Marianka, did he understand that Saban had hinted to him that if indeed prior contact was made to the call center and the log had been erased, that it was better for both of them not to look into the matter. It was possible to accuse the neighbor of making a mistake, and as for the existence of the policeman who came down the stairs and disappeared, if there was such a person, there was no other evidence.

  “Do you really think this is what he asked of you?” Marianka asked, and Avraham said, “Yes.”

  “And what did you answer him?”

  “That for now we have other angles to investigate anyway. But that I’ll investigate this case as I know how.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Nothing. What could he say?”

  When they sat down at the table in the kitchen to eat dinner, he wanted to talk about her, about her day at work, but Marianka insisted on talking with him about the case, and he tried to tell her and again omitted the rape from his story. They ate pasta with tomato sauce and drank red wine, and Avraham told her about the findings that were supposed to arrive from the lab in Jerusalem and about the keys and wallet that weren’t found, about the questioning of the laborers working in the area and about Shrapstein’s conversation with Leah Yeger’s son, but he didn’t tell her about David Danon and his family’s threats.

  During the time he spoke was there a glimmer of longing or sadness in her eyes over the fact that she gave up her position with the Brussels police, or did it just seem so to him? He wanted to spare her the sadness and therefore said that he didn’t have photographs from the scene in his possession when she asked to see them. She touched his hand when she said, “You look worried, but it sounds to me that up to now you did everything you should have, no?” And he said, “Could be.”

  “And you haven’t started smoking again, right?”

  All this was so different from the apartment he would return to at the end of a workday before Marianka arrived.

  A radiator worked in the living room, and when he opened the door he entered lit and heated rooms, and for the first time in a while he had someone to talk to. So why was it that every time he stuck the key in the keyhole he was sure she wouldn’t be there? And why, even though she was, did he act as if he were alone? Marianka suggested that they continue watching episodes of Th
e Bridge, but the last thing he wanted to see were detectives who know everything. He washed the dishes, and when he heard her turn on the television in the living room he closed the kitchen door and made himself an extra sandwich. Afterward he went into the living room and sat down next to her, and a bit before he surrendered to the heat coming off the radiator and fell asleep on the couch, in his clothes, he did ask her how her day was at work, and she started to tell him, but his eyes were beginning to close.

  Her question, “Do you remember that this weekend my parents are coming to visit us?” he could no longer hear.

  5

  That afternoon, while she was at work, Mali succeeded in hiding her tension and functioned as always. She stayed at the bank until six thirty, and on the way back went to her parents’ to pick up the girls. They had just eaten dinner and her mother placed an extra plate on the table and served her rice and bean soup. This was the dinner they ate in her childhood, in the winter, when her father returned from work, at five thirty or six, and perhaps because of it Mali wanted to remain there. Perhaps it was also the pregnancy that caused her to want someone to take care of her so she could stop taking care of everyone for a moment. When she left the apartment at noon it was in disarray and Kobi was wandering around the living room looking for his umbrella, and she would have to straighten all that up when they got back.

  Her mother, like always, didn’t notice. She talked about her winter migraines and the water stain the rain made on the ceiling. Only her father looked at Mali while she ate. From time to time he placed his hand on Daniella’s light hair, and when she finished eating he helped her wipe her mouth with a napkin. And even though Mali asked her mother to do homework with Noy, she discovered that the books hadn’t been opened and that Noy hadn’t prepared for a math test, and this of all things caused her to feel that she was losing control and that her family was disintegrating.