by Rose Fox
Don was surprised. He stared at the tall figure of his friend, Ronen, and squinted suspiciously. Ronen stared at Don. His white shirt was open and part of the shirt tails hung over his black pants. For a second, Don was confused and waved the blue envelope in the air, as if trying to explain or justify his returning home. Suddenly, he grasped what he was seeing and called out in a thundering voice:
“Hey, Ronen, what the hell are you doing here?!”Without thinking twice, Ronen yelled back at him:
“I came here to ask for the money I loaned you. Remember? I need it.”
He always knew how to get out of a tight corner. That was his great talent and it usually worked.
“Ronen, what are you babbling on about?” Don asked. He almost turned to leave and suddenly called out to him:
“Wait, I never meant to return that money to you.”
“But when you needed it you felt fine about asking me, right? Ronen yelled.
“Right, but afterwards I thought how many times I had picked up the check when we ate out together, for the women, who were with us and for all our outings together. Yes, it was just the way our messy relationship worked.”
“Good for you!” Ronen mocked him.
Don waved the blue envelope and suddenly caught on. He was completely confused and he looked up at Ronen again.
“I ask you again, what are you really doing here at five in the morning?”
“Hey, Don, why don’t you just go? You don’t want to miss your flight, do you?"
Don moved closer to go up the stairs. He pushed Ronen lightly but Ronen blocked his path and put out his arm to stop him. Don slipped on the bottom step and hit the gilded handrail beside it. He got up again to go up to his bedroom and now he saw Irit, his wife, sitting on the bed. He called out her name and grabbed the handrail but Ronen sprang over the three steps and picked up a heavy glass vase that stood on the corner of the stairs. He swung the vase up in the air and brought it down hard on Don’s head. Don’s eyes opened wide and he tried to raise his arm to fend off the blow and protect his head but didn’t manage to evade it. The smashing of glass was heard and Don slipped down to the foot of the white marble stairs.
His eyes stared, wide open and a thin stream of blood slowly formed a pool that grew larger under his cheek. Round red drops of blood spread out and splattered the white steps. He lay there like that, surrounded by pieces of the broken vase, which were intertwined with beautiful long golden stems that touched the now silent Don.
After that, Ronen worked like a robot.
He took off his shirt and used it to wipe the gilded handrail and then the knob of the front door. He returned to the bedroom and wiped the bedroom doorknob, as Irit’s gaze followed him silently. Moving quietly and calmly, he picked up his bag, straightened his rumpled hair in the gilt framed mirror and put on his crumpled shirt. Without another glance or word to Irit, he simply turned towards the entrance and closed the door quietly behind him.
At the beginning of the path, he didn’t notice that a slim pen resembling a lighted cigarette slipped out of his shirt pocket. Near the gate, he pulled his car keys out of his pocket and a small white bead-like candy, wrapped in cellophane, fell from between them.
All at once, he slowed his pace and even paused on the paved path. When he reached Don’s car, he turned off the radio, stopped to wipe the radio button and the car door handle with the sleeve of his shirt and closed the open door.
Completely composed and cool, he got into his black car and drove away, reflecting on the effort awaiting him to conceal and fix what had occurred at the house he had just left.
* * *
Advocate Ronen Bar-Chen was a real fighter but this time it wasn’t just any case he was fighting. This time he was fighting for his life. He had taken on the prosecution of the state’s case against Irit, his lover. He was accusing her of the murder of her husband, Don, whose murder, he himself had committed.
His opponent, Irit’s defense counsel, was Jonathan Ben-Bassat.
Jonathan was thoroughly frustrated; for almost ten months he had been waging a determined battle against the prosecutor, Ronen Bar-Chen, and felt incapable of defeating him. He felt as if he was always a step behind the prosecutor. Every idea or fresh fact he brought or discovered could not surprise the man. He had an answer for everything Jonathan came up with. It was more than strange that, in fact, Advocate Ronen knew everything, even before Jonathan made his submissions. The thought crossed his mind that someone in his office was leaking his ideas or that Bar-Chen had been looking through his papers.
Jonathan sat at the defense table and listened to Advocate Bar-Chen questioning Irit, the accused. The truth was that the prosecutor no longer had any feelings for the woman on the stand, for the woman whose home he had visited as her lover for so many months. He looked at her indifferently and spoke.
“Tell the court where you were when your late husband, Don, slipped on the steps?” he asked as he coldly browsed through his papers.
“In the bedroom.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, when it happened, yes. I was alone.”
Her answer was important to Ronen in order to be certain she hadn’t seen what had happened.
“I have a question. Do you know what happened in the living room of your home?”
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him, trying to understand the question.
“I think that the vase hit him.”
“The vase was big and heavy, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Here, Advocate Jonathan rose.
“My client said she was not present, so she is not required to speculate or guess that the vase rose up and hit her husband’s head.”
“Yes, Your Honor, but it is her home and there is no other way to clarify the location of the vase and its role as the murder weapon.”
“Alright, if that is your line of questioning, the objection is rejected,” said the Judge, glancing at Jonathan, who had returned to his seat at the defense table and whose face expressed his disappointment.
Advocate Ronen affected consideration towards her when he asked:
“You told us that your husband returned unexpectedly and that you heard loud music blaring from his car outside.”
Irit nodded her head because she didn’t remember saying the things she heard now from the prosecutor, so she glanced at Jonathan. His eyes also reflected his surprise and Irit assumed that she had said that in one of the earlier court sessions.
“Who went out to close the door of the deceased’s car and switch off the radio that was playing at such an early hour?”
“Ah, the music?! I don’t remember, Perhaps, I did. No, I didn’t close it and I didn’t go outside the house.”
“Are you saying that you went down the three steps to the living room and only then saw Don, your husband?”
The defense counsel rose to object and Ronen said immediately, “I withdraw the question,” thus avoiding the objection.
“I’ll rephrase the question. When you went out of the bedroom, what was the first thing you saw?"
“I came out of the room only after I heard the front door closing and that was when…”
Ronen hurried to interrupt her. “Yes, yes, tell the court what you heard from the bedroom.”
Irit blinked at him with tormented eyes and the lawyer seemingly tried to help her recall.
“For example, a struggle, the vase breaking or, perhaps, music from the car?”
Irit’s voice broke. She quickly wiped her cheek and sniffed.
“I don’t, meaning, I do. I heard breaking glass and the door close. Afterwards, I went down and saw Don lying on the steps.” Her last words were spoken in a tearful voice but Ronen was tense and eagerly pressed on:
“Were you able to talk to him?”
She didn’t reply and the defense counsel stood up and turned to the Judge in an assertive tone.
“My learned friend insists on dictating the details of the case and
puts them in the accused’s mouth, exactly as he assumes they occurred. He is not questioning the witness, but is speaking for her.”
Irit stood on the witness stand and did not hear the exchange between the defense counsel and the Judge. She was worn out and unable to concentrate. The judge, who also sensed this, banged his gavel on the block.
“I call for a recess of exactly one hour,” he said.
Weeks earlier, Jonathan had attempted to draw Irit out. He was almost convinced that Irit had not murdered her husband, but he also understood that the situation looked very bad for her at the moment. The prosecution had succeeded in presenting a situation that implied that she had been at home alone and the penetrating interrogation by Advocate Ronen seriously questioned whatever the defense brought to court.
Jonathan searched for some loophole or detail that might have escaped his eye. He tried to check if she had forgotten or was covering up some details.
“Listen,” he explained patiently, “perhaps there’s something missing from our story. The prosecutor knows everything and there’s a danger he may pop up with something you’ve forgotten that is likely to change the whole picture.”
She shrugged her shoulders and pursed her lips.
“No, there’s nothing more.”
“Irit, perhaps someone else was involved in this,” and was amazed that she looked up at him and answered him quickly:
“No one was with me that day. When I got out of bed and went down to the living room, I found him lying there like that.”
Jonathan looked at the papers on his desk and suddenly decided to take a break from it all and called his friend, also named Jonathan, but everyone called him Joni or Hawk, as his last name.
“Hi, Hawk, what are you doing this evening, say at eight?”
“Me? I’m meeting you at 'Mendele’s Pub' for a pint of fine beer.”
At ten to eight, Jonathan was already sitting in the shadowy pub at the faded wooden bar, waiting for Joni Hawk. Five minutes later Joni appeared at the entrance, came and sat on a bar stool. He beckoned to the young man behind the counter and held up two fingers. Two tall glasses of beer slid across the counter and stopped precisely where they waited.
“Hey man! Why are you looking so down?”
“Don’t ask. It’s been tough going” and he raised his glass. “To life,” he cheered and drank deeply.
“So, tell me”, Joni said, "Come on, spill it out! No, not the beer, your heart.”
Jonathan smirked.
“Okay, I’ll start by saying we’re finished.”
Joni kept quiet, sipped his beer and listened attentively.
“Listen, she didn’t kill him, but she’s hiding something and she won’t tell. She’ll get a life sentence just because of some small detail.”
“Interrogate her alone, break her and make her tell you the whole story.”
“I can’t, I tried, and we’re lost.”
“And the prosecution can break her?”
“It’s hard to believe. The prosecutor knows more than I do. It looks like he’ll be the one to break her.”
Jonathan almost wept and heard Joni say, “Well, it’s time to call in that defense attorney who rescues the guilty from the guillotine. Call her now.”
“Who are you talking about?” Jonathan asked and drank deeply from his beer glass. Someone pushed a dish of peanuts for them and Jonathan absent-mindedly took a handful and began stuffing them in his mouth.
“I’m referring to that lawyer. Her name’s slipped my mind for the moment. You know; the one who’s good at closing cases. She only joins the defense team at the end, when everything seems hopeless.”
“Who is she?” Jonathan asked and suddenly his eyes lit up. “Oh, right. Why didn’t I think of her? Joni, you’re a genius! I love you!”
He pushed his almost emptied glass away, it slipped and turned over. Its contents poured out slowly to form a little puddle. He ran out of the pub and stared into the dark night. Here he stopped and pulled out his cell phone.
They met the following morning.
Abigail skimmed quickly through the court protocol Jonathan gave her and mumbled quietly.
“Hmm… interesting how the prosecutor knew about the loud music that morning and that the car door had been left open.”
She looked up, “how much time do we have till the next session?”
“Ten days. It’s November fifth today and next session’s been fixed for the sixteenth.”
“Okay, let’s ask for a deferral to add me to the team and appear with you at the next session. Perhaps, we’ll visit the crime scene. Oh, where are the lab reports?”
“What lab reports are you talking about? Didn’t you see the findings I mentioned in the first pages of the file?”
“I saw them. Do you want to come with me to Irit’s house?”
“Sure, when?”
“Let’s say, in about an hour, and only after I write a request to join the team and we get a deferral of at least one month.”
“Wait. Does that mean you’re joining our defense team?”
Advocate Ben-Nun gazed at him and raised her eyebrows. A smile spread on her face when she saw Advocate Jonathan Ben-Bassat’s expression of pleasure.
* * *
Jonathan and Abigail set off on their way to the home of Irit and Don Avrahami.
They reached the intersection after about twenty minutes. Abigail signaled and turned into a quiet and pleasant street. Plane trees lined both sides of the street and created a rustic atmosphere. The single storey villas were impressive and cloaked in shade at this hour of the afternoon. The gates to the yards had nameplates and on one of them, the names “Don and Sally Avrahami” appeared in gold letters on dark wood.
Abigail stopped and looked through the bars of the gate at the paved path that led to a heavy carved wooden front door. A youth on a bicycle stopped nearby, dismounted and continued walking to the neighboring house. Abigail quickly opened the car door and spoke to the youth.
“Hi. Do you live here?”
He turned towards her. “Yes,” he replied.
His hair was auburn, a true redhead with freckles spread generously over his nose and cheeks.
"Do you know Don and Irit, your neighbors?”
“Don? Poor guy! What did they do with that tall guy who came here early that morning?”
“Who came that morning? I didn't hear you well, what did you ask?
“Nothing, I just said, poor Don.”
Abigail realized that she had hit the jackpot. She smiled brightly at him and got out of her car.
“May I come in with you?” she asked and the youth shrugged his shoulders and walked towards his house as she followed him.
When Abigail sat facing his mother, Adelah, she asked her for more precise information about the Avrahami family.
“We hardly ever saw them.” Adelah said.
“They were almost never at home. Don was a tourist guide and we knew he was away from home a lot.”
“Adelah, would you agree to appear in court?”
“I would rather not.”
“I understand. I’ve heard some important things that could help Irit.”
“I’m pleased, but no.”
“Could we, perhaps, get a statement from your son, Zohar?”
“A statement? What statement could he make? He’s only a kid.”
Abigail rested a reassuring hand on her arm. “Just about what he saw that morning; when he went off to school on his bicycle and saw someone tall arrive at t and Don’s house.” She leaned back and added, “you know, that’s such an important detail that no one seems to know; the fact that Zohar saw another person there, that morning.” Adelah nodded.
“That’s right, and I remember something else. I was wakened that morning by loud music coming from outside.”
They ended the unscheduled visit and went out onto the street.
“Are we going back?” Advocate Jonathan asked.
“No, definite
ly not yet; this meeting was not part of our plan.”
Jonathan opened the gate and Abigail walked ahead up the path. All at once she bent down and picked up a tiny branch that looked like a cigarette and near the door, she paused to pick up a transparent bead and put them both in a small bag she had prepared.
There was no sign in the tidy house to hint at what had transpired there.
Abigail looked round the living room and the three steps that led up to the second level. She went ahead and looked around slowly, and then she took a slim knife out of her bag and scraped the corner of the first step, beside the gilded handrail. She put the scrapings in another small bag in the larger one, containing the other items she had collected from the path.
* * *
The court was due to reconvene in the matter of Irit’s case at two fifteen in the afternoon and Abigail hurried to the lab on the second floor of the building of the Police Investigations Division.
At two, she entered the corridor of the Jerusalem District Court. She knew she was in the right place when she saw the tall figure of Advocate Bar-Chen. She walked in his direction and noticed his horrified expression as he turned to the young man standing at his side.
“Oh, good God!” Ronen spluttered and felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
“What happened?”
“Look for yourself,” he hissed and smiled at her as she approached him.
“Hello, Miss Ben-Nun,” he said to Abigail. “Ma’am, are you coming here?”
“Yes, if this Justice Ayalon’s court.”
“Where is Advocate Jonathan?” he asked, but she didn’t reply, pleased to have noticed his tension.
Ronen’s feverish mind began working overtime. He knew that this lawyer was only called in cases where the defense was under pressure and found itself at a dead end. He also knew that the cases she joined ended with the acquittal of the accused. How she managed this, he did not know, but he recognized her abilities and feared them.
For the next few minutes Ronen double checked the possible vulnerabilities in his case. Thus far, he was confident that the final outcome would be in his favor. He had already begun calculating how many years Irit would get for the premeditated murder of her husband, Don. There were nights when he had lain smiling with satisfaction at the way the case was proceeding and pondered pleasurably how he had got Irit arrested in his stead. It gave him so much power and satisfaction.