The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything

by D. A. Mishani

  And he actually didn’t even want to be there. He joined Esty Vahaba because that was the only way to make progress on his angle of the investigation, and because he didn’t know what to do when he returned to his office from the terrible visit with Ilana Lis.

  Since the morning hours, everything had worked against him. He hoped that Erez Yeger would agree to their giving him a polygraph and DNA examination in order to prove he wasn’t the assailant, but despite the advice he received from his lawyer Yeger refused and didn’t say another word to Shrapstein in the interrogation room. Nor did he explain why he hid from the detectives that he was adopted or the phone call with his mother the day before the murder. Through the interrogation room window Avraham heard Shrapstein threaten the handcuffed Yeger that if he didn’t agree to the tests, that the police would publish the news that a relative had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder. Avraham thought this was just an interrogation technique, but while he was eating lunch Ma’alul informed him over the phone that Ynet.com posted an article saying that the police were close to solving the case.

  It took the page time to open because the Internet connection at the station was slow, and when Avraham read the piece he couldn’t believe it.

  The headline read, “Police Close to Solving Holon Murder,” and in the body of the article it was written that in less than a week the investigation team succeeded in arresting a suspect in the murder of Leah Yeger, a member of the victim’s family, and that in a few more days an indictment would be brought against him and the gag order would be lifted in its entirety.

  Avraham immediately called Benny Saban, but he didn’t answer. And when he hurried to his office he discovered that he wasn’t at the station. When Vahaba came in to update him about the testimony she gathered from rape victims, it seemed for a moment so pointless, since, after all, the investigation was nearing its end. Vahaba, too, saw the article on Ynet.com for the first time in his office. She wasn’t certain that further questioning of Mazal Bengtson would yield additional information, but it seemed to her that Bengtson was the only one from among all the women she spoke with who perhaps knew more than she told her. Bengtson’s rape case was handled by the Eilat district, and Vahaba explained to Avraham that she had decided on her own to also speak to women who weren’t attacked in the district but resided in it, and Avraham looked at her with admiration when he asked to read the file. “But why would she hide something?” Avraham asked, and Vahaba said, “I have no idea. But she asked to see the photo and I think she was surprised when she saw the policeman in the picture.”

  Bengtson’s fair girl who stood in the doorway to her room also looked at them with a frightened gaze when Avraham said to Mazal Bengtson, “I am Police Superintendent Avraham, commander of the Investigations Branch in Ayalon District. As Esty told you today, we are in the middle of a very sensitive investigation concerning a policeman or a man who presents himself as a police detective and gathers testimony from rape victims, and we came to share with you additional details from the investigation that would perhaps help you to recall if you recently met with this man.”

  Mazal Bengtson’s gaze passed back and forth between him and Esty Vahaba, and she also didn’t stop sending fleeting glances in the direction of the girl standing by the door, but Avraham did not attribute much importance to this.

  “May I ask you a few preliminary questions? I understand from Esty that you were assaulted approximately three years ago, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “In Eilat.”

  “Yes. In a hotel.”

  Avraham didn’t recall from the rape file that he read beforehand in his office if Bengtson was married or divorced, and on the door he didn’t notice any sign with names. He felt that she wanted them to leave so she could continue cleaning the apartment. Perhaps she also didn’t want to return to the assault that she certainly had tried to forget. Avraham opened his notepad and searched for a pen in his pockets, and when he didn’t find one he asked Vahaba. “You told Esty today that you don’t remember the last time you gave testimony to the police. We have it written that you were questioned in 2013. Is that correct?”

  “It could be. If that’s what’s written.”

  “And do you recall who questioned you then?”

  “Always the same policewoman.”

  “Yifat Asayag from the Eilat police?”

  “Yes.”

  What was he supposed to ask her actually? And for what purpose? Did he think that she’d suddenly tell him that the policeman had been in her home and before he took off left her with a full name and a telephone number? He tried to get rid of the doubts that arose in him following the meeting he had before this with Ilana Lis and to concentrate on the woman sitting in front of him, but nevertheless it was as if he didn’t see her. Mazal Bengtson was a good-looking woman, but he didn’t notice this because of the fleece she wore or the gloomy living room, and only when he would meet her again would he notice this. On a finger on the left hand was a wedding ring and on the other hand was a second ring. And Avraham remembered what he read about the night when she was attacked in Eilat.

  She was alone there, in the framework of a professional conference. And the man who attacked her was never found.

  One of the theories of the investigation team was that the assailant was a tourist who was staying at the hotel and fled Israel that same night or a refugee who entered the country a few days before from the Sinai desert. A different theory was that Bengtson invited to her room a man whom she met at a party in the hotel but wasn’t willing to admit this. What bothered the team was that no traces left by the attacker were found on the clothes she wore when being questioned that night, and only when they told her that did Bengtson say that after the attack she took off her pajamas and put on the clothes she wore to the party.

  How old then was her daughter who watched them from the door? And did she know anything about all this? Despite his efforts to concentrate, Avraham’s thoughts wandered to the conversation with Ilana. He heard himself say to Bengtson, “One of the details we discovered is that the policeman makes phone contact with the victims and confirms over a few conversations that they aren’t suspicious of him before setting up a meeting with them. Perhaps you recall something like this? Someone who tried to set up a meeting with you?” Bengtson thought for a few seconds before she said no.

  “This means you’re certain that since 2013 no person introducing himself as a police detective contacted you, not even by phone? Perhaps you want to see the photo again?”

  All that was so unnecessary, or at least this is how he felt.

  Avraham fell silent and grabbed his warm mug and looked at Esty Vahaba, who was sitting next to him. When the girl came near to them on tiptoes, as if they wouldn’t sense it, Bengtson said to her, “Daniella, go back to your room, okay, sweetie? We’ll finish soon, right?” Avraham nodded.

  Only when Ilana opened the door for him earlier that afternoon did Avraham think about the fact that this was the second time he was visiting her home overall. And that she had never been in his apartment.

  The previous time had been during the shiva for her son who was killed in a training exercise. Avraham didn’t come alone then but rather with a delegation of policemen from the station, and they stayed less than an hour because the house was full of visitors. But he remembered everything. The well-lit living room and the shelves loaded with books and especially the strange art objects, dark clay masks and colorful pictures in which nothing clear had been painted, and wooden sculptures that Ilana and her husband had brought back from their travels around the world and which were scattered throughout the house. Even Ilana looked the same to him, at least at first glance. She wore a loose-fitting dress and over her long red hair a scarf had been wrapped, but her blue eyes looked at him with exactly the same glance, which at least at the start of their meeting Avraham felt contained affection. They didn’t hug but only shook hands. And when he asked, “How are you?” Ilana sa
id to him, “You see, everything’s okay. I’m still alive.”

  Did Avraham only understand then how much he missed her? How much he longed for her presence at meetings of the investigation team? He wanted to talk with her from the moment he left the murder scene, because almost from his first day with the police she accompanied each case he investigated. And in each one of the team meetings he’d led since the murder he thought about what she would do were she sitting there instead of him. There was complete silence in the apartment, not even noises from outside could be heard, and he wanted to ask Ilana what she does before her husband returns from work, when she added, “I finally have some vacation. I’m taking advantage of the time in order to read books I never got to,” as if she really could hear his thoughts. On the giant wooden table in the dining room, next to a plate with dates, he saw the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, opened and facedown, and for some reason he thought that she put it there for him and that she hadn’t read it beforehand. Hadn’t she told him once, many years ago, that she’d read that book? He didn’t know if or how to ask her about the disease and the treatments. When they sat at the table it seemed to him that he noticed in her pale face signs of her disease and that she wasn’t telling him everything. She had grown thin, and when she led him to the living room she walked with difficulty. Finally he asked, “How do you feel?” and Ilana said, “Excellent. The surgery was successful and I have two more rounds of treatment, and afterward I’ll return to work.” But she didn’t look to him like someone who could soon return to work. When she asked him, “What’s with you?” he was struck by a strong desire to tell her about Marianka and her parents’ visit and his father’s deteriorating condition, and at the same time he felt the exhaustion building up in him in recent days, and thought that if he placed his body atop the thick pillows scattered on the sofa, he’d fall asleep. He said, “I’m fine.”

  “And how is your girlfriend? Is she managing here?”

  That was what it was like from the first day he told Ilana about Marianka. She refused to call her by name.

  “Yes. Quite well actually.”

  “What is she doing? Is she working?”

  “She found work at a health club. Giving karate lessons. And she’s looking for other things.”

  “Wasn’t she a cop there?”

  “Yes. She was. But she was also a karate instructor.”

  Afterward Ilana said that you wouldn’t know by looking at him that his girlfriend is a fitness instructor, and Avraham laughed. He was sure she had changed her mind and wouldn’t refuse to help him when he asked to share his troubles with her, and when she questioned him about working with Saban, it seemed to him that he was right. “What did you want to consult with me about?” Ilana asked, and Avraham said that everything had changed since the last time he called.

  “We have a hell of a case. You must have heard,” he said, and Ilana was quiet for a moment before asking, “Do you mean the murder of the old woman? I heard on the radio before that it’s closed.”

  “They arrested the wrong man,” Avraham said immediately, and Ilana asked, “Who did the arresting?”

  “Saban. And Shrapstein was with him.”

  “And why the wrong man?”

  “Because it’s someone else. It’s not her son.”

  Was he mistaken when he felt that Ilana was listening to him with great interest? He updated her on the details of the investigation she wasn’t familiar with, told her that Leah Yeger had been raped in the past, and about the testimony of the neighbor and Diana Goldin and about the photograph of the policeman. Ilana didn’t interrupt him once. He was now head of the Investigations Unit and Ilana was on leave, and they were at her home and not at the station, but it was exactly like their conversations once were, especially when Ilana left the living room and returned with an ashtray and a pack of Marlboro Lights. Avraham hesitated before saying to her, “No, thank you. I quit,” and she looked at him, surprised.

  “Are you sure? Is it because of the athletic girlfriend?”

  He felt better when he finished talking, and when Ilana asked him, “So how can I help you with this?” he said, “I don’t know. You tell me. I want to convince Saban to publish the photo of the policeman, but I don’t know how. He’s scared of the damage it’s liable to cause, and you can imagine that that’s the last thing the police need right now, but I have no other way to get to the killer. Do you have any idea how I should talk to Saban? Or maybe I can speak to someone above him?”

  Ilana exhaled the smoke too close to him and said, “I think that in this matter Saban’s right. To publish a photograph like that when you know so little about the suspect and his involvement, it’s an irresponsible act. And I also agree with him about the damage it’s liable to cause. Understand, Avi, you see before you this investigation, but whoever’s above you has to see the larger context. There are other investigations, and the police have other tasks in addition to solving a murder. That’s exactly the responsibility of a district commander.”

  “But I have no other way to get to the policeman, Ilana. And I think I’m not mistaken and that it’s him, and once we know who this is we’ll be able to verify it through the findings from the scene. Will you at least agree that everything points to him?”

  Ilana set the cigarette down in the ashtray and Avraham almost reached out his hand to it.

  “How could I know?” she said. “I haven’t seen the investigation materials and I haven’t read the testimony and I have no way of helping you with this. I have no idea how trustworthy your witnesses are, and most important, I haven’t questioned her son. It sounds to me like you could be right, but I’m sure you’ll succeed in catching him even without publishing a picture in the newspapers. I trust you.”

  Avraham placed the handbag that was by his feet on the table and said, “I have everything here, Ilana. The materials are here.” It was forbidden to remove the file from the station, but he had to bring it. Ilana put out the cigarette and asked him suddenly, “Avi, what do you really want?”

  There was anger in her gaze, and he didn’t understand why.

  “You know you’re not allowed to share the materials in the file with me because I have no official position with the police right now, and I’m happy about that. And I asked you not to involve me in any investigation. That doesn’t make me feel good and doesn’t give me comfort, trust me. I want to detach myself from all this. And you don’t need me.”

  “I’m not trying to give you comfort, Ilana,” he said. “And I’m telling you that I do need your help. Saban is only occupied with how he and the police look, and above him as well they apparently don’t like it that I’m searching for a cop.”

  Ilana interrupted and said to him, “I’ve known you enough years and I think you’re doing this because you think that if you include me I’ll feel better. But let me decide what’s right for me, okay? And don’t help me, Avi. Not like this at least.”

  That wasn’t the reason he was there, and he told her again that he was in need of her help.

  “I told you, I can’t help you.”

  “I think you can.”

  “How?”

  “Think with me about a way to get to him. If not with the help of the photograph then another way. And also about his motives. Why would a policeman do a thing like that?”

  For a moment Ilana looked at him with interest. Avraham recognized the flash in her eyes when a certain detail in an investigation sparked her imagination. This was exactly like before she got sick, in her old office at that Ayalon district station or in the new one at the Tel Aviv district headquarters. She and him and a cigarette burning in an ashtray between them and smoke exhaled toward an open window. The intimacy between two detectives who knew that thanks to the cooperation between them an endless number of past cases had been solved. “You don’t have a motive?” Ilana asked.

  “I have theories.”

  “Such as?”

  “Revenge perhaps. He wants to get
back at the police for something. If he’s still a policeman it could be that he’s frustrated. And maybe it’s someone who was fired from the service.”

  Ilana said, “Could be,” and went to the kitchen to empty the ashtray in the garbage, and Avraham thought this was a sign that she’d look at the materials, but when she returned the intimacy had faded, and Ilana again refused to discuss the case with him. He insisted again, until she suddenly asked him, “Do you want to know what I really think?” and lit another cigarette.

  He said that he wanted to know.

  “So I think that Saban is right.”

  “Right about what?”

  “This photo, like I told you, cannot be published. Period. And the investigation of the son can progress at the same time as you look into the matter of the policeman, I don’t see why not. Do you remember what we always said? That you have to listen to all the possible stories simultaneously? That the most severe mistake we make is to lock into just one story because it suits us, and not listen to other stories?”