The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything

by D. A. Mishani

  “We’re already in Haifa. It’s urgent now? People are coming to our house to pay condolence calls.”

  He wanted to see him at that moment and to gather testimony himself, but perhaps there was logic in postponing the interrogation. He didn’t know almost anything about the son other than that he was a superintendent of a high school, and postponing the interrogation for a few hours would enable him to gather additional details and verify his alibi and perhaps even clarify with Erez Yeger’s sister what the reason was for the dispute between her mother and her brother. “Can you arrive first thing tomorrow morning?” Avraham asked, and when Erez Yeger said, “Yes, but can you tell me what’s so pressing? Are there developments in the case?” he didn’t answer.

  The cafeteria was almost entirely empty when Avraham ate a late lunch there, alone. Only Efrayim Bachar, from the traffic division, sat at the other end of the large room and spoke out loud on the phone with his daughter, while chewing on toothpicks, and signaled hello to Avraham with his head.

  Avraham ordered a salad and two sandwiches for himself and ate quickly, and in his head the thoughts about the son and the phone call to the police mixed together. If he was feeling more energetic, for the first time since the investigation was opened, this was because he was no longer waiting in his office. Again he thought about Benny Saban. During his years in the police he more than once saw policemen turn a blind eye on testimony or findings, but never before this had he been explicitly asked to ignore testimony. And in these moments it seemed to Avraham that the neighbor’s testimony was telling a story that was simply impossible to deny: a policeman who tried to conceal his identity arrived at Leah Yeger’s apartment a few minutes after two, even though according to the register no patrol was sent to the building before four thirty. He was determined to report the conversation to Ilana, even though she wasn’t on active duty.

  On his way back to his office Avraham stopped in front of Lital Levy’s desk in order to ask if there was anything new. She said no, and then looked at her desk and handed him a sheet of paper. “I forgot to give you this before. A list of people who were looking for you two days ago, when you were off,” she said, and he asked, “When was I off?” before he remembered. He glanced at the paper on the way to the office and meant to put it on a stack of files that were on the desk when he saw the name Diana Goldin and next to it a telephone number. He returned to Lital Levy in order to confirm that he read the name correctly.

  “Do you know who took the call?” he asked, and Lital Levy said, “I did.”

  “And did she tell you why she called?”

  “She asked to speak with you and when I told her you were off she said it wasn’t important. Do you know who she is?”

  He called the phone number that appeared on the paper but didn’t get an answer and left Diana Goldin a message. Ilana Lis, on the other hand, answered him and his voice shook when he said to her, “Hi, Ilana, how are you? It’s Avi.”

  She recognized his voice and he thought that she was happy to hear him, despite her requests. After all, for years, even when she left the station and transferred to Tel Aviv district headquarters, they spoke on the phone almost every day and updated each other on their investigations. He didn’t think Ilana could disconnect from police work after twenty years in investigation departments. He didn’t know if she was at her home or in the hospital, but he was too embarrassed to ask. Before she started with the treatments he did some checking on the Internet and to his delight discovered that she wouldn’t be hospitalized for long weeks but rather just for a series of intensive treatments, between which she could recover at home. When he asked her again, “How are you?” since she hadn’t answered him, she only said, “Couldn’t be better, Avi. And you?” And he got down to business in order to cover up his embarrassment. “I need your help with something,” he said. “May I visit you when you’re home and feeling okay?”

  “It can’t wait?” Ilana asked, and he said, “It can wait a few days. But no more.”

  “On the condition that we don’t talk about any cases, as I asked. If it’s something like that then let’s take a pass.”

  “It’s not exactly that, Ilana. It’s something else,” he said, and didn’t lie, because then he did think that they’d speak only about Saban’s request.

  Diana Goldin tried to call him back while he spoke with Ilana, and when the conversation ended, his phone rang again. He was unable to imagine why she was looking for him, and even when she explained, it took him time to understand. He said to her, “Diana? Thanks for getting back to me. Police Superintendent Avraham. I was on a day off and saw that you were looking for me, correct?”

  Diana said that it wasn’t anything important. She wanted to return to a policeman who had been at her place a few days earlier the umbrella he had forgotten, and because she didn’t remember his name and didn’t have his phone number, she called the station and asked to speak with Avraham. When he asked her, “When was the officer with you?” she said a few days ago. Last Thursday. “And in regards to what matter was he with you? Did you call for him?” Avraham asked and didn’t expect that his question would frighten her.

  “What do you mean what matter?” she asked quietly. “In regards to the rape. What other matter could it be?”

  He didn’t want to worry her more than he already had and so he said he’d get back to her in a few minutes. He asked Lital Levy to find out who was the policeman sent to her home. The idea that there was a connection between the two incidents, between the two policemen, occurred to him only when Diana Goldin’s rape file was brought to his room and he studied it, but even then, when the idea expressed itself for the first time for an instant, he dismissed it immediately. There was a different killer in his thoughts during those hours, and there was a simple explanation for the policeman who was observed at the crime scene. And only when he sat across from Diana Goldin and gathered her testimony did he sense that perhaps he was mistaken when he hurried to rule the connection out.

  He rose from his seat and welcomed Diana Goldin warmly when she entered his office an hour later. Her hair was gathered in a ponytail and her face was small and beautiful as he remembered. There was anxiety in her gaze, and he thought that perhaps he shouldn’t have insisted that she come to the station immediately. But Lital Levy told him that according to her checking, no police officer was sent to Diana Goldin’s home in recent days and Avraham didn’t want to wait. When he studied the rape file before Diana arrived, he couldn’t help but think about Leah Yeger.

  Diana Goldin was assaulted in September 2012.

  She was raped in her apartment by an actor who was then her partner at a small theater that put on plays for children. She was thirty-two years old and resided in Bat Yam, and Avraham was the detective who investigated the rapist, over many hours. He was also present for the confrontation between them in the interrogation room on the second floor, when the actor continued to deny what Diana said. She turned to the police a few weeks after the attack, and therefore they didn’t have good physical evidence, but Avraham believed her—and so did the court.

  He asked Diana, “How are you?” and when she immediately said, “Can you explain what happened?” he didn’t answer. He hoped that he’d calm her when he asked if she still performed in plays, and she told him that she had established a new theater company for children’s plays in Hebrew and Russian and that she performed in them by herself, or with her dolls, mainly at daycare centers and libraries. About Michael Lan, the actor convicted of her assault, she didn’t know a thing other than that he was still serving his sentence. Avraham still hadn’t decided what exactly he would say to her, but Diana asked immediately, “What, he wasn’t a cop?” and he asked her, “Do you remember when he was there?”

  “Almost a week ago. Two days ago I noticed that he forgot the umbrella at my place and then I called you because I didn’t have his phone number. He was there last Thursday.”

  “And can you explain to me why he came to v
isit you?”

  He called her a few days before then, she said. Introduced himself as a detective in the investigations department of the Ayalon district and asked to set up a meeting. They agreed to meet on Thursday morning because she had a performance in the evening, and he said that he’d call the day before their meeting in order to confirm that it would take place and that he hadn’t been forced to cancel because of other urgent matters. He suggested they meet at the station, but said that he could also come to her home so that she wouldn’t have to visit a place that she definitely has unpleasant memories of, and she agreed because it was more convenient.

  “He didn’t explain why you needed to meet?” Avraham asked, and Diana said, “Of course he did. Otherwise I wouldn’t have met with him.” According to what the policeman said, Michael Lan had appealed his conviction, and prior to it being tried in court, where she would probably be asked to testify, he had been appointed to again gather detailed testimony from her.

  When Avraham looked at Diana he recalled that the thing that had surprised him when he first met her was that despite the assault there was something smiling in her face, almost clownish, as if even when she wasn’t standing on a stage in front of children she remained a performer. But now she wasn’t smiling. According to the inquiry Lital Levy made with the Tel Aviv district attorney’s office, Michael Lan had not appealed. And the main detail that Avraham tried to understand from Diana’s story was if the policeman sent to her knew the name and details of the rapist.

  “That’s what he called him from the beginning, Michael?” he asked, but Diana didn’t remember. Then she added, “Maybe not, I don’t think so. Maybe he called him the rapist at the beginning.”

  “And he knew your address?”

  “He asked if the address had changed and I said no. The second time he called, a day before the meeting, on Wednesday, he asked if the address was the same address, and I think I gave it to him.”

  She said the last sentence quietly. Avraham poured her a cup of water, and she asked him, “Why aren’t you saying that he wasn’t from the police?” And Avraham answered, “Because I don’t know. It’s reasonable to assume that he was from the police, but I’m trying to clarify on behalf of whom he was sent.”

  Diana covered her face in her hands. When she removed them she said, “But what does that mean? Explain to me who he is,” and Avraham continued trying to calm her. “As I told you, I don’t know,” he said. “The police is a large organization with many departments and divisions, and one doesn’t always know what the other one is doing. This happens a lot, I can assure you. It very well could be that he was a policeman who was sent to you to complete an investigation, but for now we haven’t managed to find out on whose behalf. Can you describe him to me? What did he look like? That could help.”

  The policeman was around Avraham’s height, perhaps a bit taller, stocky, and his hair was light. Diana called the uniform he wore “regular”: dark pants and a light blue shirt, with a pin in the shape of the police logo and a dark lace around his shoulder. She didn’t notice if he had a rank nor did she remember his name, maybe because he didn’t tell it to her, and she suddenly thought that she hadn’t even asked him his name, and again she covered up her face and folded in on herself.

  “Why would someone do a thing like that?” she asked, and Avraham saw that she was suffering not only because she understood what had occurred, but also because she was angry at herself for not being more cautious, and so he again said to her, “Diana, I’ll say to you once more that it could be that the man was a police officer on an assignment. Do you understand me? And even if he wasn’t, you had no way of knowing that he wasn’t sent by who he said he was,” and she interrupted him and again said, “But I didn’t even ask him his name, don’t you get it?”

  Avraham waited for her to reveal her face. What he didn’t say to her throughout their entire conversation, other than that he already knew that her rapist Michael Lan hadn’t appealed, was that if someone had been sent to her to complete the details of the investigation it would have been a policewoman—and not a policeman.

  “Do you remember how much time he spent with you?” he asked, and Diana said that he stayed for a long time. Maybe two hours.

  “Why?”

  “Because he wanted to know everything. You understand? Every detail. From the beginning.”

  “What, for instance? What kind of questions did he ask you? Can you tell me exactly how the conversation proceeded?”

  The policeman wanted to know how long she had known Michael Lan and what kind of ties there were between them before the assault. And if she had a partner at the time of the rape. And then he asked about what happened that day, when they returned from a performance at the city library. How she invited Michael into her apartment in order to talk about the next project and how they drank too much vodka and got a little drunk, and how Michael suddenly asked her to dance and she agreed for some reason, even though his request seemed strange to her, and how when she felt him up against her she asked him to stop and freed herself from his embrace and turned off the music. Michael had a girlfriend, whom Diana knew well and liked, and when he clung to her in order to continue dancing despite the silence, she grabbed the phone and told him that if he didn’t stop she would call her. And he also asked her about the clothes she wore that evening and if Michael tore them or if she got undressed herself, and about what happened afterward on the couch in the living room and what she said to him during the assault and what Michael said to her when everything was over. And he recorded everything, from the first moment.

  “What does that mean, recorded?”

  “With his phone. He showed me that he was turning the app on.”

  “And while he was listening?”

  “What about while he was listening?”

  “What did he do?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “He looked at me. Sometimes he checked if the device was working and also wrote in a notebook he had.”

  “Did you get the impression that he was familiar with the details of your case?”

  “He asked me to tell everything as if I were telling it for the first time, so I don’t know. Maybe not. He said that it’s necessary for the investigation.”

  “And did he say anything about himself that you remember? Something about his station? About his exact position with the police?”

  Diana was unable to recall.

  “And at no point did he try to harm you?”

  “By hitting me? No.”

  “You didn’t feel threatened during the conversation?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You were home alone while he was with you?”

  “Who else would be there? I live alone.”

  “And you don’t remember other details that could help us to identify him?”

  “Other than what I told you? No. It might be that he spoke with an accent.”

  “A Russian accent?”

  “Not Russian actually. English maybe.”

  “And did you feel that he was trying to get you to say something specific? That he was trying to force something out of you?”

  Avraham had no other questions, but Diana didn’t want their conversation to end, perhaps because she was suddenly scared to remain alone outside the station. The piece of paper with the questions that Avraham wrote at the start of the day was sitting on the table in his room—Why did she open the door for the assailant? Was she waiting for him? Did she know he was coming?—But suddenly he was no longer sure he knew the answers as he had previously thought. And despite this, at the brief meeting that was set for the investigation team toward evening, Avraham avoided mentioning the testimony he collected from Diana Goldin, because he wasn’t yet convinced that the connection between the two incidents was anything but coincidental.

  He walked Diana out of his room and asked Lital Levy to escort her to the Computer Unit so they could draw up a facial composite of the policeman, even if it turned out in a little
while that there was no need. Before they said good-bye she asked him, “You don’t want the umbrella?” and Avraham took it from her hand and looked at it. She held it on her knees throughout their entire conversation, and he hadn’t even remembered that it was the reason she had called.

  7

  For a few days Mali was sure that Kobi had told her everything that morning, before the girls woke up, and in his way he did indeed try to tell. The woman he spoke about and the circumstances of the injury were different, but there was a seed of truth in what he told her, as if he nevertheless wanted her to understand.

  ***

  At a quarter to eight Mali called the bank and informed them that she’d be absent from work. She waited for Kobi to take Daniella and Noy in her car to day care and school. When she tried to catch a cab on Ben Gurion Boulevard, she still wasn’t certain that this was the right thing to do and hoped that when she returned she would succeed in convincing Kobi to consult with someone, perhaps even a lawyer. She immediately suggested that they do this together when he told her what happened, but Kobi wasn’t ready to listen. “What would a lawyer tell me? Just to turn myself in to the police,” Kobi said. “And there’s no chance I’m going in there.”

  The taxi driver listened to the news on the radio but also wouldn’t stop asking her questions. He asked if she was going to work and where she works, and her answers were confused. He wasn’t from Holon and had arrived in the city following an earlier ride, and she directed him on the way to the center. When she got off at the corner of Jabotinsky Street and Krause and started walking down Krause, Mali saw that the cab was standing in the spot where they had stopped, and she turned onto one of the smaller streets and waited until it disappeared. And she didn’t see the car in the place where Kobi said it would be. She crossed the street and made her way back, and only then recognized the old blue Toyota Corolla on the other side of Krause and crossed over again. She didn’t waste time examining the car but instead opened the front door with the naturalness of someone leaving for work. The car didn’t start immediately, and Mali placed her bag on the seat next to her and tried again. It had ignition problems and had sat there for three days without moving, most of the time in the rain, and it was necessary to try again, patiently and without getting stressed. The SUV parked in front of her was empty, and there was almost no traffic on the street. And no one looked at her while she tried to start the Corolla again and again until the trilling of the engine could be heard.