The Bar Mitzvah Murder

by Lee Harris

  “We learned there’s no record of anyone at the other hotel having called an ambulance,” I said.

  “How is that possible? I saw it come; I saw the men put Gabe into it. And everyone else there saw it, too.”

  “It’s possible the person who called isn’t at the hotel today. Maybe one of the guests used a cell phone.”

  “I’ve talked to them all. The ambulance came so quickly after Lenny said we should call one that no one had time to make a call. Someone inside must have seen Gabe lying there and made the call. I just want to know why the police aren’t working on this. My husband is missing. He’s sick or hurt or worse. How do we get them to move?”

  I explained about Jack and that he was trying at his end but that he wanted me to gather as much information as possible. “Maybe we can just talk,” I said, “you and Mel and I, try to put yesterday’s events in order, try to figure out where people were when your husband got hurt.”

  “What difference does it make where we were?” she said with exasperation. “No one in our group did anything to Gabe. And I don’t even know what happened to him. Did he have a heart attack? Did he fall and injure himself? I am just at my wits’ end.”

  I could see that was true, and I felt for her. I didn’t want to argue that one of their guests might have done Gabe some injury, so I ignored her comment. “Can you tell me how many people were at the party?” I asked, starting with a neutral question.

  She let out her breath as though she had lost an appeal. “We were forty adults and I don’t know how many children. Gabe would know.”

  “Are they all relatives?”

  “Most of them. A few are friends. He has friends that he grew up with in New York, men he’s still very close to. Two of them came with their wives.”

  “Do they work together?” I asked, thinking of the competitive nature of business.

  “No. They went separate ways where business is concerned.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “I love them. They’re good and kind and their wives are lovely people. The way you’re asking questions makes me think you suspect some kind of foul play.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I don’t think so. I think he fell or became ill. There wasn’t a mark on him.”

  “There was a little blood on his sleeve,” Mel said.

  “Gabe has a lot of nosebleeds. It’s nothing. He’s talked to the doctor about it.”

  “Did you get a good look at the ambulance attendants?”

  She looked confused. “I was looking at my husband. I wasn’t sure he was alive. I was terrified.”

  “Mel said you wanted to ride with him, but they wouldn’t let you.”

  “That’s right. I forgot about that.”

  “Did you get a look at the face of the man who told you you couldn’t get in the ambulance?”

  She stared at me. “Yes, I did. Round. Dark eyes. Small black beard. Sort of chubby, his shirt coming out of his pants. And he was wearing a kippa.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the little round hat Jewish men wear to temple and religious men wear all the time,” Mel said.

  “I see.” I wrote down a phonetic rendering of the word, then turned to Marnie. “So you did get a good look at one of them.”

  “Yes, I did. I’m glad you asked. I hadn’t remembered.”

  “Would you recognize him again?”

  “I would. I’m sure of it.”

  “Good. If we don’t learn anything, we can always go to all the hospitals and ask to look at their ambulance attendants.”

  “Yes,” Marnie said, a look of almost relief spreading over her face. “Yes, we could do that. I would know him if I saw him again.”

  “OK. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s go over the guest list.”

  I had been lucky. When she realized she actually had a piece of important information, the identity of an ambulance attendant, she became more willing to talk about the people at the party. We went through them with Mel’s help, as Marnie didn’t have a list of names handy. Between them they came up with thirty-six of the adults, including the two old friends, Gabe’s sister and brother, their parents, and a lot of cousins, all with spouses. We spent quite some time at it, and just as we were finishing up, the phone rang. Marnie jumped up to answer it, nearly stumbling on a purse left on the floor.

  A minute later she looked at me and said, “I think this may be your husband.”

  It was. “How’re you doin’?” he asked.

  “Learning things but getting nowhere. What about you?”

  “Joshua’s very upset and embarrassed about this. He says it’s been handled badly—tell me something I don’t know—and he’s gone to the two major hospitals to try to find out if Gabe is at one of them. He called in a few minutes ago and said Gabe is still missing.”

  “This is terrible.”

  “I know. Joshua’s going to look into the morgue, too. He wants to know if it was really an ambulance that picked this man up.”

  “What else could it have been?”

  “I don’t know, maybe a bakery truck that saw a problem and picked him up and dropped him off at a hospital.”

  “Jack, you can’t be serious.”

  “I am. Maybe some panel truck drove by, saw there was a problem, and decided to help. If they dropped him off and left, the hospital wouldn’t know who he was if he was unconscious or dead.”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “Meantime, there’s nothing in police files that Joshua can find.”

  “Keep trying.”

  “You bet. Talk to you later.”

  I hung up and rejoined the women. “Jack suggested it might not have been an ambulance that picked your husband up.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Maybe a panel truck was passing by and saw something wrong and stopped to help. Since you don’t know what was written on the side of the truck, it could have been anything.” I had decided not to use Jack’s example. “Or maybe someone from the hotel flagged them down.”

  “But they seemed so professional,” Marnie said. “They knew what they were doing.”

  “And they had a gurney,” Mel said. “That’s not my imagination. I saw it. It was one of those things that collapse to sit on the ground and then lift so they’re about so high.” She showed me with her hands.

  Marnie agreed. “That’s right. And they had the kinds of things you’d expect an ambulance to have. I started to get inside, so I’m sure.”

  Well, it had been a try. “OK. We’re better off if it was an ambulance. There can only be so many in the city and we can track them down. Marnie, did your husband say anything to you? To anyone?”

  She shook her head and grabbed a tissue. “He wasn’t conscious. He was just lying there with his eyes closed, not moving.” She started to cry. “I’m sorry. This is very painful.”

  I got up and found my purse. “Mel, I think we’ve done all we can right here. I’d really like to talk to the cousin who’s a doctor, but otherwise, I think we should leave Marnie to take it easy.”

  “I disagree,” Mel said, getting to her feet. “I think the three of us should go to the hospitals right now and see if Marnie can identify an ambulance attendant.”

  I looked at Marnie. She nodded. “Mel’s right. Sitting in this room is just making me more depressed. I want to get out and do something. I want to make something happen.”

  “Then let’s go,” I said. “Mel, we need you to navigate.”

  She pulled out her map, opened it up, and got to work.

  5

  Hadassah Hospital was in the northeast section of the city on Mount Scopus, just before the Hebrew University. These were places I had looked forward to visiting as a tourist and I hoped that would still be possible, but it was out of the question right now. We parked and went inside, getting a bit of a runaround until Mel insisted very firmly that we had to see the ambulance drivers and attendants. The woman we were making our case to relente
d, finally, made a call, and a minute later a girl in her twenties appeared and showed us the way to where the ambulances waited for calls.

  The attendants were sitting around talking, snacking, reading, and one seemed to be asleep. Marnie went over and looked at him first, shaking her head. He was clean-shaven and his hair was on the fair side.

  We then looked at all the men one by one. Marnie said no to each. As we inspected them, an ambulance pulled in and the two attendants rushed to remove an old woman who appeared to be in very bad shape. Marnie went over, keeping out of their way, but I could see her shaking her head absently as she saw their faces.

  We asked if anyone had been working yesterday and had not come in today and were told these were all the same people. We started back to the car.

  “These ambulances look different,” Mel said. “The one that took Gabe wasn’t from this hospital.”

  We consulted the map. There were a couple of Arab hospitals listed, but Mel was sure the writing on the side of the ambulance had been Hebrew. Even I could tell the difference in the script, having seen signs in both languages. We tried another Jewish hospital but had no luck. Mel and I took Marnie back to her hotel and decided to have some lunch.

  “I’ll show you a great place,” Mel said when we were in the car. “It’s called Nachalat Shiva and there are lots of restaurants and some wonderful shops. You need to do something that’s fun, Chris. This is your vacation.”

  I laughed. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. We’ll have a leisurely lunch and then we’ll go to some great stores. I hope we can park.”

  We were lucky. We parked in a lot that barely had room for us to move, but someone pulled out as we came in and that gave us a space. The unpronounceable place we were going to was a few steps away, and we picked a restaurant where we could sit outside. Although it was November, it was very mild, and I enjoyed sitting under the awning rather than indoors. People walked by and I watched them, telling myself again that I was five thousand miles away from home, that I was in the Holy Land. An occasional soldier walked by, armed with a gun that could be an Uzi, accompanied by a pretty young girl who clung to his arm. Love is the same everywhere.

  “What are you smiling at?” Mel asked.

  “That couple, the soldier and his girlfriend. They’re very sweet.”

  “It is sweet. Let’s order before I pass out. Hal and I had the hummus salad with mushrooms and hard-boiled egg here the other day and I can tell you it’s out of this world.”

  “I had hummus last night for the first time in my life. That sounds like a good lunch.”

  “Sure you don’t want tuna salad?” Mel teased.

  “I’m positive. I’m trying to be cosmopolitan or worldly or whatever the current description is.”

  “Good.” She signaled the waiter and ordered for both of us.

  It was a wonderful lunch, and I enjoyed every morsel. As Jack and I were eating dinner with his parents and our son tonight, I expected we’d have a big meal, so this was just perfect.

  While we ate, Mel recalled two of the four missing names of people at yesterday’s party and gave me a small amount of information about them. “You want to know about Marnie?” she asked.

  “I hate to ask, but yes, I’d like to know about her.”

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed she’s on the young side.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “It’s a second marriage. Gabe married in his twenties, had two kids, and the marriage broke up. It didn’t happen quite as fast as I’ve said it. They were married about twenty years and their kids were in college. No one in the family knew there was trouble until one day Hal’s mother called and said she’d heard from her sister-in-law that Gabe and Debby were separating. By the time we got the news, they weren’t living together anymore.”

  “I see. So Marnie’s a second wife.”

  “Yes, and a very good one. They go together very well. I really like her.”

  “That leaves me with a lot of questions, Mel. First off, I don’t remember hearing the names of Gabe’s children when we went over the party list.”

  “They didn’t come.”

  I almost groaned. I was orphaned before my fifteenth birthday and I would have done anything to have a parent to live with and love. When I hear about these family splits, something in me seems to drop into a black pit. “Do you know why?” I asked.

  “It was a horrible divorce, Chris. These two people who had loved each other, stayed together through hard times and into very good times, just grew to hate each other. They couldn’t be in the same room for more than five minutes. Debby accused him of all sorts of things that may or may not have been true and Gabe said she didn’t care enough about him to put a decent meal on the table when he was hungry. He was right, too. There were nights he came home to cornflakes. And maybe she was right. I don’t know.”

  “So the children sided with her.”

  “They were in a terrible situation. They really had to make a choice. They were old enough that there was no custody involved, they could live anywhere, but they weren’t really able yet to live by themselves, so they stayed with Debby and saw Gabe from time to time.”

  “So their sympathies were with the mother.”

  “And still are,” Mel said, “from everything I’ve heard.”

  “Were they invited here?”

  “Definitely. Gabe told us.”

  “But they didn’t come.”

  “The son responded. The daughter didn’t bother.”

  “It sounds ugly.”

  “It is.” Mel looked at the check, which had been dropped off a few minutes earlier. “Down the middle?” she asked.

  “Yes. That reminds me. I have to change some traveler’s checks. And get these shekels fixed in my mind.”

  “Divide by four. That’s what most of the shopkeepers do.”

  We each paid our share and stood. Across the narrow walking street the restaurant fronted on were several shops. I was interested in seeing the kinds of things available in this part of the world, so I thought shopping might be a nice idea. Also, I had accumulated quite a lot of information for Jack and wasn’t sure where to go from here until I knew what, if anything, the police were doing. Without Gabe’s whereabouts—or his body—it was hard to know whom to question and what to ask, although I did still want to talk to the doctor cousin.

  “Stop thinking,” Mel ordered. “We have better things to do for the afternoon. I’m going to show you some things that will knock your socks off.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  6

  I have never been a shopper for luxury goods. Having been a nun in my twenties and having lived at St. Stephen’s for fifteen years, I learned frugality young and have never been able to give it up. Not that I think giving it up is a good thing to do. Jack had told me before we left the States that I should loosen up a bit, buy myself something wonderful, and consider it a gift from him. I’m sure he knows me well enough to realize I could never do that without his being right beside me and pushing me hard.

  But looking in the shops at Nachalat Shiva with Mel, who had been taken there a few days ago by a relative, was a pleasure. There were shops filled with ceramics by Israeli artists and jewelry stores with beautiful silver chains of varying lengths. Some were machine-made and some handmade, which the prices and designs reflected.

  After we visited several stores, Mel guided me through a narrow alley between two buildings, up some stone stairs, and into a shop filled with earrings, pins, and necklaces made from beads of semiprecious stones. Each one seemed to be more beautiful or more interesting than the last. Mel walked around collecting the ones she liked, occasionally replacing one that no longer enchanted her. The beads were of different sizes and shapes in colors that really grabbed me: purple, green, turquoise, black, white, and almost everything I’ve left out. There were bits of silver and gold interspersed, lengths that went from choker to halfway down my blouse.

  �
��Mel, this was very unkind of you,” I said. “There are so many and I like them all.”

  “So do I. Shall we fight over them?”

  I laughed. “No, you take them all. I’ll enjoy seeing them on you.”

  “You’re not getting away that easy, lady. I was there when your wonderful husband ordered you to buy yourself a present.”

  “It wasn’t exactly an order,” I said, gulping.

  She gave me her great grin. “I’m taking this one. I never thought of lavender and green together, but I love it. Hal will love it, too. Excuse me.” She turned to the woman sitting at the desk near the door. “Can I look at earrings?”

  I had a great time watching this play out. There were drawers and drawers of earrings, a dizzying number. Mel had told me once that Jerusalem was the jewelry capital of the world—her mother had been here a few times—and she and Hal had saved their pennies to spend during the trip. I could see why. I had my eye on a necklace of blue and green beads, but I thought I would rather come back a second time to make a final decision.

  “Are they gorgeous?” Mel said, holding her beads up to the light.

  “They are. And those earrings, too. Mel, you’ll have to go somewhere very special to wear them.”

  “You bet.” She took her bounty to the desk and I walked around the room again by myself, thinking it had been a long time since I last indulged myself.

  A few minutes later, we walked down the stone steps, Mel’s boxes securely in her bag. She was glowing and I think I was, too. We found the car, settled up, and Mel guided us back to her hotel.

  There was a small police car parked near the entrance and Mel said, “Uh-oh,” as we got out of the car. She had asked me to come in while she looked for Lenny, the doctor who had tried to revive Gabe. Now she started running toward the entrance. I followed her into the lobby, where she grabbed a house phone and asked the operator for Marnie’s room.

  It wasn’t a long conversation, but when Mel hung up she leaned against the shelf where the phones were, her forehead in her hand.

  “What is it?” I said.