The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything

by D. A. Mishani

  That afternoon, Mali traveled from the bank to the police station. She turned off her cell phone so that Kobi wouldn’t call while she was there. In the morning she told him that her mother would bring the girls back from day care and school, and Kobi said to her, “Why your mom? I can get them myself.” She walked quickly down Fichman Street, as if she had another destination and passed by the station building without looking at it. Three policemen sat on the stairs leading to the station, smoking.

  She still didn’t know what exactly she’d say to the police, even though throughout the day, between meetings and even during them, she repeated the sentences she woke up with that morning. I came so that you’d help my husband. He’s the man who dressed up like an officer, but he didn’t mean to hurt anyone. She planned to ask to speak with Esty Vahaba because she felt that she’d understand. It’s my fault he did this, and he didn’t mean to do any harm. And he needs help. We have two small girls, and we’ll soon have a baby.

  She turned right and began walking away from the station, but in the distance there was nothing to calm her and the buses that passed shook the street. Maybe she wasn’t at peace with the sentences she wanted to say because it wasn’t really her fault? Also the picture of the birth alone kept on hurting, she and the baby crying in the room without anyone to hear, and the thoughts about the darkness that would welcome her when she opened the door.

  And this was the last evening.

  Mali remembered that darkness descended after six and that she continued walking away from the station. She walked slowly and only sometimes, when someone walked too close to her, did she increase her pace. But she wasn’t afraid, and when she reached the park near the old public library and heard the voices of high school students coming out of it, she sat down on a bench. The lamps in the park weren’t on, and the only light reaching the bench came from the street.

  One of the girls came up to her and asked if Mali had a cigarette for her, and only then did Mali understand that in this very park, years ago, she kissed Kobi for the first time. She stole a cigarette from Gila for him and was scared to smoke, even though she wanted to try so badly, but after he smoked she surprised herself when she leaned toward him and kissed him in order to know what the taste was and because Kobi wouldn’t have tried to kiss her himself. She returned to the car and drove to the mall to buy Noy a Frozen costume as if the lives of the four of them would continue as usual, and when she returned home she again had to lie to Kobi as she explained why her phone was off. The girls were already asleep, and that was good, because she didn’t have to speak with them. Kobi told her that in the afternoon they said good-bye to Harry in the garden. He carried him in his arms in the elevator and they did a last walk in the building’s garden and afterward let him eat salami, and Noy took a picture with him alone on the roof because Daniella refused. They didn’t cry, because Kobi explained to them that the next day he was taking Harry to a hospital in order for them to perform surgery, but he did say that Harry was old and might not return.

  Lying in order to finally tell the truth. And to save him.

  Kobi didn’t touch her at all that evening. Even though they walked right next to each other in the same apartment, it was as if they were in different, separate spaces, each one preparing him- or herself for what was soon to come. She got into bed alone, as she would need to get used to doing, and in the silence that was in the apartment she heard him from the living room speaking to his father.

  He said in English, “Dad? It’s me, Jacob,” and afterward she heard him say, “No, I’m not coming. I just wanted to assure you. Everything’s okay. You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m sorry about the message I left you. Everything worked out, so don’t worry about me, okay? And how do you feel, Dad? You feel okay?”

  Something in his English was so natural, and she could sense the taste of the tobacco that was on his lips then, as if the English returned to him something of its taste, and after the taste came the sights from the public park and from the morning in January 1991 when he waited for her and her father.

  Kobi? It’s Mali from class. The war started.

  His sleepy voice when he said to her, with the accent he had then, Now? In the middle of the night?”

  Suddenly she wasn’t sure she’d be able to go to the police station the following morning, but she did go. Kobi was in their bed when she awoke, a bit before six, and didn’t feel her getting up. She opened the blinds in the living room and saw that rain was falling and so put the jackets for the girls on the couch in the living room, so they wouldn’t forget them, next to the costumes, and when Daniella again said she wouldn’t wear the costume, Mali didn’t insist. Noy asked if they were going to come to the Purim party at school and Mali said yes to her, because she really hoped then that it wouldn’t take more than two or three hours.

  13

  During the first few minutes, Avraham didn’t say a thing about the picture that he saw in the bedroom, despite the excitement. He got into the squad car parked on the street and drove off in silence. The coming hours and what he had to do in them rolled around in his thoughts, and he forgot that he wasn’t alone. Only when Esty Vahaba asked him, “So what do you say?” did he remember that she was sitting next to him and answered her without taking his eyes off the street, “It’s her husband.”

  Vahaba looked at him. “Whose husband?”

  “Mazal Bengtson’s husband. That’s the policeman.”

  When they stopped at the light he saw the surprise on Vahaba’s face and told her about the photograph hanging over the bed. He paused opposite it for a moment and then regained his composure and walked softly back to the small bathroom and flushed and turned off the light before closing the door behind him. Mazal Bengtson and Vahaba were waiting for him in the living room. And the girl who stood by the door to her room throughout the questioning wasn’t there. He wanted to stay and continue the investigation but preferred not to arouse suspicion and to put his thoughts in order before deciding how to proceed. He said to Mazal Bengtson, “Thank you very much for your help,” and her gaze avoided him when she answered, “It was nothing. Sorry I couldn’t help more.” On the mailbox for apartment 13 there was no name, but Avraham took a letter from the national insurance out of it and on the envelop saw his name for the first time: Yaakov Bengtson.

  The man he was looking for.

  The man who set up an appointment with Leah Yeger and knocked on the door to her apartment, wearing a uniform. Who strangled her and left her on the rug in the living room, and then was seen going down stairs and disappeared.

  He wasn’t a cop.

  At night, after the emergency team meeting that he called, Avraham couldn’t stop thinking about Bengtson, even though during those hours he didn’t know many details about him. Marianka slept, and Avraham walked silently through the apartment and turned on a light just in the kitchen. On the table was a small basket with fruit, and the refrigerator was full of food, some of which they bought and some of which they cooked in preparation for Anika and Bojan’s visit, but he defrosted a frozen roll in the microwave, as in the days when the refrigerator was empty. He prepared a cheese sandwich and made black coffee, despite the late hour, and sat down to eat on the porch with Mazal Bengtson’s assault file. He read again about how she was attacked in Eilat by a man who wasn’t caught.

  A bit after 1:00 a.m.

  In a room on the seventh floor of the Royal Club Hotel in Eilat.

  What amazed Avraham during the team meeting that he’d organized after returning to the station with Vahaba was that no one other than him raised the question of the motive, whereas now that was the only thing he thought about. Before then, when he assumed the assailant was a policeman or a man who was fired from the ranks of the police, he thought the motive could have been frustration or revenge. But Bengtson wasn’t a policeman. And why in fact had his wife lied? Avraham had no doubt there had to be a connection between her unsolved rape and the crimes committed by her husband.
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  Absentmindedly, he found himself conversing with Bengtson, as if they were sitting across from each other in the interrogation room.

  Is this what you did? You searched for whoever attacked your wife? Did you believe you could catch him alone? Or perhaps you were trying to prove something to the police who were unsuccessful in catching the rapist? He didn’t think much about Mazal Bengtson that night, and in retrospect he should have been thinking about both of them, or about the connection between them, a connection that he was far from understanding even when everything was over.

  Ma’alul was on a bus on his way home when Avraham and Esty Vahaba returned to Fichman Street, and Avraham asked him to get off at the next stop, catch a cab, and return to the police station. Saban was called from talks about another case. And Avraham informed Marianka that he’d be late because of developments in the murder case, and heard the disappointment in her voice when she asked, “So when will you get back?”

  He didn’t know. And didn’t ask Lital Levy to summon Shrapstein to the team meeting as well, but no one commented on his absence. When everyone grabbed their seats around the conference room table, Avraham recalled his visit with Ilana Lis. When he left her apartment he was debating whether to go home and leave control of the investigation to Saban and Shrapstein, whereas he now sat at the head of the table and his powers had returned to him, and he waited for silence to fall over the room. Saban, as usual, set his cell phone on the table and touched it when Avraham said, “That’s it, we located the policeman,” and then paused in order to note Ma’alul’s response and facial expression. In the center of the table was a bowl of clementines that remained from a previous meeting, and Eliyahu reached out his hand in order to take one when Avraham began speaking. Saban waited for him to continue.

  “Beyond that, I think we also figured out his connection to women who were rape victims,” Avraham said. “We’re talking about a man whose wife was assaulted a few years ago in Eilat. Her name is Mazal Bengtson, a resident of Holon, and the man who attacked her wasn’t caught. Her husband, Yaakov Bengtson, is the man we’re looking for. And he isn’t a cop.”

  Avraham said the last sentence mainly for Saban. The eyes of the district commander woke up when he asked him, “How do you know?” And Avraham said, “We were with them now. The credit goes to Esty, who spoke with his wife this morning in the framework of the questioning she conducted with rape victims and felt that she was hiding information. She suggested that I join another round of questioning at their place and I saw his picture there. Afterward we made an inquiry with human resources. We don’t and have never had a policeman by the name of Yaakov Bengtson.”

  Ma’alul peeled the clementine and placed two segments in front of Lital Levy, who sat next to him. When the cleaning woman entered without knocking and asked if it was possible to wash the room, Avraham signaled to her with his head that it wasn’t yet. All this wasn’t as celebratory as one might think the meeting in which the solution to his first murder case was presented would be, but this didn’t bother him. When Saban asked, “And you’re absolutely certain that this is the same man from our photograph?” Avraham nodded.

  In the photograph in the bedroom Bengtson wasn’t in fact dressed, but it was impossible to mistake the face—especially the eyes. Both photographs were black and white, and in both of them Yaakov Bengtson was shot in profile, and his pale eyes were identifiable in both of them. Avraham was sorry that he didn’t photograph the picture with his cell phone in order to show them, but he didn’t think about this when he was there. Saban put his phone into his pants’ pocket and asked, “But you showed her the picture, no?” and Vahaba answered yes for him.

  “And what, she didn’t identify him?”

  “She said she doesn’t know him,” Vahaba answered. “But understand that she is the one who requested that I show her the photograph we found on the security tape when I questioned her this morning. And when I showed it to her, it seemed to me that she knew something. That’s what made me suspicious.”

  “So do we assume that his wife knows and that she is cooperating with him? Or is she protecting him?” Ma’alul asked, and Avraham didn’t answer immediately, because this was one of the things he still didn’t know. This question continued to bother him at night as well, on the porch, during the phantom conversation he conducted with Yaakov Bengtson, and even then he didn’t have an answer.

  Did you tell your wife you were continuing to chase down the man who raped her? That you dressed up as an officer and questioned women and that one of them you killed because she apparently understood that you’re not a cop?

  “I have no idea. I assume that she identified him and lied. This at least has to be our working hypothesis,” Avraham said, and when Ma’alul asked, “Just a moment, Avi, did you also tell her that he’s suspected of murder?” Avraham looked at Vahaba because he didn’t know what she told her that morning. Vahaba said, “What do you think? Of course I didn’t tell her,” and Avraham exhaled with relief.

  Ma’alul and Saban thought he had to call Bengtson in for questioning that night, but Avraham wanted to know additional details about him before they met. The questions he wanted to ask were only beginning to be formulated, and the right questions were the key to the right answers.

  Saban said, “You did nice work, Avi. And Esty, same thing. And do you see that it was possible to find him without publishing in the papers and embarrassing all the policemen in the country? In any case, I think it’s necessary to question him quickly and at the same time not abandon the angle of the son. Is that acceptable to you? What do you intend to do now, Avi? Do you want to bring him in?”

  Avraham shook his head.

  His working hypothesis was that Bengtson knew that the police were on his trail. Vahaba presented the photo from the security video to his wife that morning and revealed to her many details of the investigation, even if she said nothing to her about the murder. If Mazal Bengtson shared information with her husband, he’d know that they’re onto him and would definitely be ready for this when he was called for questioning. Therefore it would be better for now to put him, or the two of them actually, under surveillance, and wait.

  “Wait for what?” Saban asked, and Avraham said immediately, “Wait until we’ve gathered firmer information and evidence, and until we know better who he is and why he did what he did.”

  This was the plan of action he had formulated since he saw the photograph. Later he would think that perhaps he had made a mistake, but on the other hand, it was impossible to summon Yaakov Bengtson in for questions without preparing. Avraham asked Ma’alul to put together a profile of him with the help of all the information he could manage to collect. He wanted to clarify whether Bengtson had a prior record and if his DNA and fingerprints were located in the criminal forensics database, and if so to have them compared to the findings taken from the murder scene. He wanted to know where Bengtson worked and what car he had, and if it was photographed in the area of the scene on the day the murder took place. He even asked Ma’alul to find out if Bengtson has a Facebook account and what kinds of material he posted there. Ma’alul wrote down these things in his notebook and said to him, “No problem, Avi. You’ll get it by noon tomorrow.” Esty Vahaba was asked to gather additional information on Mazal Bengtson.

  When Saban sighed and asked him, “Do you need anything from me?” Avraham hesitated for a moment before he answered, “Yes. Erez Yeger, the son,” and Saban looked at him in amazement. “You want to release him? That’s not premature? You made progress today, but you still don’t know if this Bengtson or whatever you call him was involved in the murder. Only that he apparently dresses up like a cop, the son of a bitch.”

  That wasn’t correct, but that wasn’t what Avraham wanted. He knew that Bengtson was involved in the murder even if he still didn’t know everything. He knew that Bengtson was the man who was seen in Leah Yeger’s building, and he knew that he was the man who had set up a meeting with her. “No, I wan
t the opposite,” he said to Saban. “I want to extend Yeger’s arrest for forty-eight hours and to make another announcement to the newspapers about prolonging his arrest and the additional progress in his investigation.”

  His objective was to try and confuse Bengtson.

  A week had passed since the murder, and Yaakov Bengtson had time to cover up the evidence, certainly if he knew that the police were on his trail. And to Avraham it seemed that Bengtson knew well what he was doing. He removed from the scene everything he thought was liable to incriminate him, and the chance that they’d succeed in finding the uniform he wore that day or the cell phone with which he recorded the conversations with the women was tiny. Avraham had to try to cause him to think that the investigation was advancing in a different direction, despite the visit to his home, and in the meantime understand who he was. Only then would there be a chance that Bengtson would unknowingly lead them to the evidence, for instance the uniform he was wearing during the murder or the place where he disposed of Leah Yeger’s handbag and calendar, or that he would say something to someone unintentionally. He had to try to cause him to sleep at night, while they were awake, ready for any move he’d make.

  Saban listened to his plan, and after he saw that Ma’alul was nodding as well he approved it.

  And perhaps if Avraham had summoned Bengtson for questioning immediately he would have received answers to the questions he continued asking him without a sound, on the porch, in the dark.

  Do you, too, wait for the morning to come in order to act?

  Toward two he went to bed, laid down next to Marianka’s thin body, and she moved away from him in her sleep. All this was so strange: He was in the apartment where he had resided for many years, in the bed on which he had placed his heavy body at the end of a day of work for more than ten years, and nevertheless the feeling was different. He stared into the darkness and listened to the humming of the refrigerator in the kitchen but nothing put him to sleep. Marianka turned to him and without opening her eyes said something he couldn’t hear, in a language he didn’t understand. A short time afterward he poured himself a cold glass of water and returned to the porch because it was clear he wouldn’t sleep.