The Bar Mitzvah Murder

by Lee Harris

  As Jack picked up, I went back upstairs, thinking that this was not happening. This was a work and fun trip, a time to enjoy ourselves. We were in the Holy Land; I was eating Middle Eastern food and touring the city of Jerusalem at night. How was it possible that a disaster could intrude? How could Hal’s cousin have died or been kidnapped on this very important day in his life?

  I listened to Jack’s description of the few facts he knew: the name of the victim, the location where the accident had happened, the circumstances of his being in Jerusalem. When Jack hung up, he sat and looked at me, shaking his head. He was in his stocking feet and he had wriggled out of his jacket, which lay where it had dropped on his bed.

  “This is wild. Tell me again. This guy Gabe, he’s the cousin who had the Bar Mitzvah?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “And he got himself hurt or killed or kidnapped.”

  “Did Mel tell you how it happened?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t know. They found him lying unconscious on the grass and a cousin who’s a doctor tried to revive him but couldn’t get him to wake up. They got someone to call an ambulance, and they came and took him away.”

  “Where’s his wife?”

  “That’s one of several questions I didn’t ask,” Jack admitted.

  “Did they take him to a hospital?”

  “Presumably. Mel doesn’t know which one because the name on the side of the ambulance was written in Hebrew letters and she was too stressed to try to figure them out. I guess she knows some Hebrew, at least more than we do.”

  “Are you telling me they don’t know where Gabe was taken?” I asked.

  “That’s what she said. They’ve been trying to find him in hospitals all over the city this afternoon, but either they don’t have his name right or there’s a language misunderstanding or—I don’t know what. He’s missing.”

  “Did they try the morgue?”

  “Joshua said he’ll make some calls and get back to us tonight.”

  “You said they looked for him this afternoon. Then it didn’t happen at the Bar Mitzvah.”

  Jack looked puzzled. “Mel said something about that. The ceremony was yesterday, she said. And there was some big dinner in the afternoon at a hotel. But something else was doing today, another party with music and dancing.”

  “That’s a lot of celebrating,” I said.

  “Look, the guy has a ton of money. You fly a planeload of your best friends to Israel, you better entertain them right.”

  “I guess so.”

  “We may as well get ready for bed. If Joshua calls, I’ll take it. This is crazy, Chris.” He got up and went to the dresser, where I had put my handbag and a couple of maps. He opened the big map of the city and studied the back of it. “There are half a dozen hospitals in Jerusalem that are listed here. It shouldn’t take Joshua too long to check them out.”

  “I’ll brush my teeth while you baby-sit the phone.”

  I had just fallen asleep when the phone rang. I could tell from the conversation that it was Joshua, and I could also tell that he had not found the missing man.

  “What about the ambulance?” Jack asked at one point. “Somebody’s got to have a record of a call and a location that it went to.” He listened and listened. After a while, he said good-bye. “You think I should call Mel this late?” he asked, sitting on the bed in the dark.

  “You have to. She’s probably waiting up to hear.”

  He made the call and I got the gist of the situation. Gabe was not registered at any hospital in Jerusalem. Gabe’s body was not at the morgue. Gabe was not at his hotel. Gabe was not at the last place he had been seen alive.

  “I don’t like this, Chris,” Jack said. He was lying down and talking to the ceiling.

  “You can’t disappear. A body can’t disappear. The people in that ambulance know what happened.”

  “Joshua will check it out in the morning. I’m sure I’ll see him at the police station. You gonna see Mel tomorrow?”

  “I’ll call her in the morning. I had hoped we could get together and see the city.”

  “Ask her all your questions. Take notes. We’ll talk at dinner.”

  “OK, honey.”

  “I don’t believe this is happening.”

  The car was delivered as promised just as we finished our first Israeli breakfast. I had actually eaten some herring from one of the many dishes offered and I was feeling game to try driving. One of the secrets of my life is that I have always driven a car with a manual shift. As I am very careful with money, it always made sense to drive a car that used as little gas as possible, and now finally I have found myself among the majority. Most people in this country also shifted. Jack had learned how to shift when he was a teenager and he had had plenty of practice driving my car, so we didn’t need any special favors. I had studied the map during breakfast and determined that the drive to the police station was as easy as it had appeared last night.

  Jack got in the driver’s seat and pulled out of the compound to the main road, made a right turn, and we were on our way. By day the city looked completely different. I got a good look at the shop Joshua had told me about and I knew I would drop in when I had a moment. In the meantime, I looked happily at the blue sky and watched all the little cars speeding along the road.

  “Joshua told me to look out for Israeli drivers. They’re not as polite as New Yorkers.”

  That made me laugh. “As New Yorkers?”

  “That’s what he said. I guess we’ll find out.”

  The drive was as short as it had been last night, and we reached the police station well before eight.

  “You gonna be all right with the driving?”

  I was scared to death but refused to show it. “Sure,” I said. “How bad can it be?”

  “Drive with Mel. Then at least one of you can look at the map and check the street signs.”

  We both got out and I walked around to the driver’s side. Jack gave me a quick kiss and said, “I’ll find out what I can. You do the same.”

  “Have fun at whatever you’re doing.”

  He grinned. “That’s the name of the game.”

  I watched till he was in the building, then got in the car and made my way slowly back to the hotel. I had a tough left turn to get into the compound, but I made it. The parking situation wasn’t great, but I found a spot around the side of the hotel under a tree and left the car there. It was twenty-five after eight as I walked into the lobby and saw Mel.

  “Oh, Chris, am I glad to see you,” she said, getting up from a chair near a window. She came over and we hugged.

  “Any word?”

  “Nothing. I talked to Marnie—that’s Gabe’s wife—after Jack called last night. She’s distraught; what can I tell you? I didn’t want to call her this early, but I didn’t want to miss you, so I came right over. Hal’s with the kids. I’m so shook up I can’t even remember where he’s taking them.”

  “How ’bout a cup of coffee? We can sit and relax a little— it’s still early—and you can tell me what you know. Jack is hoping this very nice police officer will find something out today. At the latest, I’ll talk to Jack tonight.”

  “Coffee sounds good. This is a gorgeous hotel, Chris. It’s so old-world. We’re in a splashy new one with a pool and all kinds of amenities, but I really like the feel of this one.”

  “Me, too.” I smiled and led the way to the courtyard restaurant. It was a bit cool, but it was so lovely there, I thought it was better than sitting inside.

  “I love it!” Mel sounded delighted. “How about here? There’s a little sun. In fact, I think I’ll take my coat off and let the sun warm me.”

  We ordered coffee and I pulled out my notebook and a pen. “We have to go over this carefully,” I said. “I heard a little from you, a little from Jack, a little from Officer Davidson. I need to know everything you can tell me.”

  “OK.” Mel sipped her coffee. “Saturday was the Bar Mitzvah. It was wonderful. It r
eally moved me to tears, Chris. Here was this guy who’d devoted so much of his life to business and he decided to rededicate himself to his roots. We all flew over together, you know, but most of us planned to go home separately. Hal and I wanted to stay on, and a lot of the others did, too. We’re all in the same hotel and Gabe is picking up the bill for as long as we stay. This guy is just so generous. Anyway, Saturday morning we had the Bar Mitzvah in a temple in Rehavia.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a part of Jerusalem settled by German Jews in the nineteen-thirties. Gabe was wonderful. He read from the Torah and translated into English so his family would know what he was talking about. Hal made an Aliyah.”

  “A what?”

  “People are selected to come up and say a blessing before and after the Torah is read. It’s called an Aliyah and it’s an honor to be asked.”

  “OK. Go on. That was the actual Bar Mitzvah.”

  “Right. When it was over, we went to the King David Hotel for a really splendid buffet lunch. It was more like a dinner, if you want to know the truth. The table had the most wonderful dishes on it, ice sculptures, the whole thing. And it was delicious. We stayed for a couple of hours. There was champagne, live music, everything.”

  “And then?”

  “It was late afternoon when we broke up. Hal and I wanted to walk because we were so stuffed, so my in-laws took the kids back to the hotel and we just walked around. Jerusalem is closed up on Saturday, you know.”

  “It’s the sabbath.”

  “And nothing’s open, just the hotels and maybe some little restaurants. But it’s not a shopping day. Even the supermarkets are closed. So we had the pleasure of walking on empty streets, looking in windows, that kind of thing.”

  “What happened to Gabe?”

  “I don’t really know. We hugged him and kissed him after the meal and said we’d see him the next day.”

  “So the celebration continued for a second day,” I said.

  “Right. Gabe said he didn’t want to overdo it and have an evening out after a big day, so he scheduled the final party for Sunday afternoon.”

  “And where was that?”

  Mel had a map with her and she opened it on the table, folding it back to highlight a small portion. “We’re here.” She pointed. “The party was here somewhere.” She opened the map and circled an area with her finger. It didn’t mean much to me, as I had not yet come to terms with the geography of the city. “It’s a lovely place. We had a champagne lunch on the patio, dancing, and we did a lot of singing. The weather was gorgeous, so we were outside.”

  “Anything unusual happen?”

  “You mean before Gabe—?”

  “Before, yes.”

  “Nothing.” She looked at me blankly. “Everything was normal. We were a bunch of friends and family having a good time.”

  “You said last night that Gabe had an accident.”

  “That’s what we thought it was. I mean, what else could it have been?”

  “How did it happen?”

  “We were all having a good time. I remember hearing someone say, ‘Where’s Gabe? He can tell you.’ But no alarms went off. I don’t always know where Hal is at a party. Then I heard Marnie—Gabe’s wife—say, ‘Gabe? Gabe, where are you?’ I remember I kind of looked around, but I didn’t see him. A minute or two later, I heard someone scream.”

  “Who was it?”

  “You know, I’m not sure. I thought at first it must be Marnie, but it could have been another woman. It was just a scream. We all stopped talking and people started running.”

  “Where?”

  “Around the back, behind the little band. When they saw us running, they stopped playing. I didn’t really see him at first. A lot of the others got to him before I did, but I could see his leg stretched out on the grass. Hal’s cousin Leonard—he’s an internist in New York—pushed through the crowd and dropped out of sight. I walked over and saw him leaning over Gabe, testing his pulse maybe. Gabe was lying flat on his back, eyes closed. There was a little bit of blood on his shirtsleeve, I think, so I assumed he’d cut himself or hurt himself on something. I really didn’t know what to think, it was so surreal. Here we were having a good time and suddenly something terrible happens. I didn’t really grasp it till later.”

  “What did the doctor do? What did he say?”

  “Maybe he was giving him CPR; I’m not sure. Then he shouted, ‘Get an ambulance.’ ”

  “Who called the ambulance?”

  Mel looked confused. “I don’t know, but I’m not sure anyone at the party did. It came so soon, someone in the hotel must have called.”

  “So someone inside saw what happened.”

  “I’m sure a lot of people saw it. There were waiters bringing drinks and coffee and whatever.”

  “OK, so he got picked up by an ambulance. Did his wife go with him?”

  “They wouldn’t let her. I remember that. She started to climb in the back, to be with him, and the attendants pushed her out. They said she could see him at the hospital.”

  “Did they say the name of the hospital?”

  “Not that I heard. Not that Marnie heard. The ambulance took off and—I’m not sure what happened next. Marnie was in a terrible state. Someone went and got her a glass of ice water. Then Lenny, the doctor, said, ‘Come on; let’s get to the hospital and see what’s going on.’ I think that’s when we all realized we didn’t know what hospital Gabe went to.”

  “Jack looked up hospitals on my map,” I said. “There are about half a dozen. Officer Davidson checked them all, or at least some of them, last night.”

  “Everyone goes to Hadassah Hospital,” Mel said. “It’s big and it has a fabulous reputation. I think we all just assumed that’s where he was going.”

  “Did you call?”

  “We had the concierge make the calls. When we found out Gabe wasn’t at Hadassah—there are two branches and they had no record of being called out to our hotel—he tried some others. Then a few of us got in our cars and drove to Hadassah Hospital to talk to them in person.” She shrugged. “Hal and I were there. We heard the conversations. They never heard of Gabe.”

  “Mel, I think the first thing we have to do is drive over to the place where the party was and find out what hospital they called. Then at least we know where to ask questions.”

  “Good idea. I’ve had enough coffee to hold me all day. Shall we?”

  4

  It was a truly magnificent place, with lots of glass to let the sun in, a huge lobby, potted palms, and fantastic floral displays. Mel found the concierge and we asked him about the call to the hospital. He had not been at work at that time, he said, so he turned us over to the maître d’. The maître d’ didn’t know what we were talking about and suggested we ask for the hotel manager.

  We cooled our heels for a few minutes while someone searched for the manager. He arrived with a frown, a stocky man in a suit bought before he put on his last twenty pounds.

  “Yes, ladies. How can I help you?”

  We explained. He frowned. He asked us to sit while he made some calls. We didn’t say much while we waited. Mel was too fidgety to sit, so she got up and wandered to some shop windows while I kept my eye on the door the manager had walked through, half expecting him to attempt a quick escape. Finally he came out, a sheet of paper in his hand.

  “I have checked with the restaurants, with the people behind the desk, the concierge, the bellman, and even the housekeeping department. No one I spoke to called an ambulance yesterday or was asked to call an ambulance. I think you have made a mistake. Perhaps it was another hotel.”

  “It wasn’t another hotel,” Mel said with an uncharacteristic bite in her voice. “It was the party for Gabriel Gross. I’m sure you’re aware of it.”

  “Ah, Mr. Gross. Yes, of course. You should have mentioned that.”

  “I did.” She was quietly fuming.

  “And Mr. Gross became ill?”

  “H
e became ill,” Mel said, her voice like a steel rod meant to pierce this man’s innards. “An ambulance came and took him away. We do not know where he was taken. We have been trying to find him since yesterday afternoon.”

  “I see. I’m terribly sorry. I promise I will look into it for you. I have Mr. Gross’s Jerusalem phone number here. I will call his wife if I learn anything. I am truly sorry. Good morning, ladies.”

  I nearly slapped my hand over Mel’s mouth to prevent her from saying what she was feeling. The little man waddled away.

  “Let’s talk to Gabe’s wife,” I said. “It’s late enough that she’s probably awake now.”

  “You drive. I’ll navigate.”

  We had taken my car—that is, Jack’s car—from the American Colony Hotel to this one, Mel having arrived by taxi. My nerves were a bit ragged from the drive and I was beginning to understand what Joshua Davidson meant when he said Israeli drivers weren’t as polite as New Yorkers. But Mel was a very good navigator, checking out our route before we began so she had a good grasp on how to get there.

  I stopped and called my in-laws, who were nearly on their way out to take a bus tour of the city. Eddie got on the phone and spoke with great excitement about where they were going and how good breakfast was. I guess grandparents are just the best people in the world.

  We got to Mel’s hotel about fifteen minutes later with no dents or scrapes, so I felt lucky. Inside, Mel used the house phone to call Marnie Gross’s room.

  “She said to come up. She’s having her breakfast and she’s dressed.”

  “How does she sound?”

  “Terrible. I think she’s crying in her coffee. She hasn’t heard anything from anyone.”

  We took the elevator up. This was as equally grand a hotel as the one we had just visited. As we ascended, Mel explained that the party yesterday had been at the other hotel because the facilities here hadn’t been available yesterday.

  We got out and walked down a short hall to Marnie Gross’s door. She let us in and we sat in the extravagant sitting room of a beautiful suite. It was clear that Gabe had spared nothing.

  A half-eaten breakfast was on a cart pushed against the wall. Marnie, a lovely-looking woman in spite of her red eyes and worn appearance, asked if we had learned anything.