The Bar Mitzvah Murder

by Lee Harris

  “Maybe I should approach him.”

  “I get the feeling he wants to approach us, but he’s scared.”

  “Stay here, Hal.” I turned away from him and started back, seeing a painfully thin young man about twenty feet from me. He stopped walking as I began to move toward him.

  Suddenly he smiled. As I approached, he said, “You are an English lady?”

  “I’m American,” I said.

  “You want to talk?”

  “I want to know if you saw the body here last week, the dead American man.”

  “Yes, yes. I see the dead man.”

  “Will you tell me about it?” I spoke very carefully, not too fast, keeping my voice modulated. He seemed so frail, I was afraid of scaring him away.

  “My mother, she tell you.”

  “Does your mother speak English?”

  “No. I speak English. I am study in England for six months.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. “You speak very well.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  When he smiled, I could see how crooked his teeth were, how they were filled with black spots.

  “You come this way.”

  I looked back at Hal, not sure whether he should join us. He was practically at my heels.

  “Where’re you going?” he asked.

  “No, no,” the young man said. “No man. Just American lady talk to my mother.”

  “You going with him?” Hal said.

  “He says his mother saw the body. Can you wait outside his apartment?”

  “Chris, I don’t know. You may not be safe.”

  “No police,” the thin fellow said. “American lady only.”

  “This man’s not the police. He’s my friend. He will wait outside for me. Is that all right?”

  “Outside is all right.”

  We walked past a couple of buildings and then up some stairs. My guide was wearing a stained white shirt and black pants with sandals. His hair was collar-length and raggedly cut. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a key that opened the door. Hal hung back. I waved as I followed the young man inside.

  The room into which we walked was crowded with furniture, and the tile floor was covered with a worn Oriental rug in dark reds and blacks. There were no lights on and it was pretty dark, but I could make out a plump woman, her head covered with a shawl, sitting on a sofa. I didn’t like the smell in the room, but I thought I could tolerate it long enough to learn something.

  “This my mother.” He said something in another language to the woman, who smiled and nodded several times. She then pointed to a chair and I sat down.

  “My mother see the American man dead. You know this American?”

  “Yes,” I said, deciding to stretch a truth that would be too difficult to explain.

  “You ask my mother now?”

  “Did she see the man?”

  He asked her a short question and she responded at length, arms moving. “He have a cover, like a bed.” He seemed to be searching for a word.

  “A blanket?”

  He smiled. “A blanket. Yes. My mother look inside blanket. All blood on shirt. Eyes open. My mother very—” He acted out fear.

  “Afraid,” I said.

  “Afraid. My mother afraid.”

  “Did she call the police?”

  “No, no. No police.”

  “But the police came.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she talk to them?”

  “No police. My mother, no police.”

  “I understand. Then someone else called the police.”

  “Maybe someone.”

  “Do you know who called them?”

  He shrugged.

  These people clearly weren’t giving anything away. I wasn’t sure why he had been so anxious for me to talk to his mother when she seemed to have little to say except that she had lifted the blanket and seen the body. “Did your mother see the people who put the dead man in the street?”

  He asked her. She answered briefly.

  “She see two men.”

  I had my copy of the drawing made from Marnie’s description. I took it out of my bag and handed it to the woman. She nodded vigorously and spoke to her son.

  “This is the man. This the man with the American dead.”

  I took the sketch back. “Did your mother see the truck?”

  He looked as though he had not understood, then smiled and spoke to her again. “She see lorry. Truck. Yes. She see it.”

  “Did she see them take the American man out of the truck?”

  “No,” he said, translating. “She see the truck after.”

  “Did she see anything that would help me find the truck? Did she see a number on it?”

  When he spoke to her, she reached under the layers of fabric she was wearing and extracted a piece of paper. She handed it to him. He looked at it and said something to her. Then he said to me, “This for you. From truck.”

  I took it from him and looked at it. She had copied what looked like a license plate number in soft pencil that was now slightly smudged. I felt the excitement of having actually learned something meaningful that the police might not know. If all the people in this group of buildings were as reticent to speak to the police, and to me as well, I could imagine the police had learned very little. Perhaps the only reason they had been called when the body was found was to get rid of it.

  “Is this the license plate number?” I asked.

  “Yes, number of truck. My mother see number and write it down.”

  “This is really very helpful,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

  The mother shook her head and he said that was all. “No police,” he said. “You understand?”

  “Yes, I do.” I stood and offered him my hand, but he didn’t take it. I thanked him, then thanked his mother, who smiled and nodded, as though she had understood me. Then I went outside to where Hal was worriedly pacing.

  “Get anything?” he asked.

  “I think so. The woman wrote down what looks like the license plate number.”

  “No kidding. That’s pretty damn good.”

  “They’re terrified of the police. They didn’t offer their names and I didn’t ask. I’m going to find a phone and call Jack. Maybe he can run the plate and I can find out who that fake ambulance belongs to.”

  “Get anything?” Mel came toward us as we neared the cars.

  “She’s good,” Hal said. “She may break this case yet.”

  Mel grinned. “I told you.”

  We stood there for a few minutes deciding whether to split up. I wanted to go back to the hotel and call Jack from there so I would be sure to have enough time to talk to him. These phone cards had a nasty habit of cutting you off unexpectedly just as you were about to say something important.

  “You know what?” Mel said. “There’s a great pottery place right near your hotel. Hal’s cousin told me about it last night. Why don’t we drive over with you, you make your phone call, and we’ll all go over there together?”

  “You’re taking the kids to a pottery place?” Hal said.

  “My kids are very well behaved.” Mel seemed hurt by his implied suggestion. “So are yours.”

  He smiled. “Then let’s do it.”

  17

  “You got what?” my unbelieving husband said in my ear.

  “The plate number. This woman copied it down. I’m not even sure she’s literate, but she had a pencil, with a thick, smudgy point, and a piece of paper and she wrote it down.”

  “Can you make it out?”

  I read it off to him as best I could. “Can you find someone to run it?”

  He laughed. “You’re telling me you want to stay one giant step ahead of the cops.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. Can you do it?”

  “I’ll give it my best shot. Where are you?”

  I told him, and told him what the plan was with the Grosses. “If you get anythin
g, leave a message here at the hotel. I’ll check back after we destroy the pottery shop and have lunch.”

  “Keep my name out of the destruction, OK?”

  “You bet.”

  When I got off, I started to think about the little man in the hotel lobby this morning. Perhaps I had been too abrupt. If he came back to talk to me, we might be out to dinner. I decided to call and leave a message if he didn’t answer. I wouldn’t mind talking to him with Jack around; in fact, I’d prefer it.

  I called Mel’s hotel and asked for Simon Kaplan’s room. The operator came back and said, “I’m sorry. No one by that name is registered.”

  “He’s checked out?” I asked in surprise.

  “One moment, I’ll transfer you.”

  A man answered this time and I repeated my request. He assured me Mr. Kaplan was not registered. I asked when he had checked out.

  “I have no record that he was registered here in the last week.”

  I was stunned. “Thank you,” I said. Now what? I thought. Either he isn’t who he said he was or he’s registered under another name. Or maybe . . . I reached for the telephone book to look up the hotel the Bar Mitzvah party had been held in and realized, once again, that the book was printed in Hebrew. I called the operator and she got the number and connected me.

  No, I was told, there was no Simon Kaplan registered. I asked her to check the date of the kidnapping. No, she said tiredly when she returned, he had not been registered on that day, either.

  Something very strange was going on, but I couldn’t pursue it at the moment. The four Grosses were downstairs waiting for me. I picked up my bag and went to find them.

  “Looks like they have a great outdoor restaurant,” Hal said when I got off the elevator.

  “They do. Maybe we can have lunch here when we get finished looking at pottery.”

  He laughed. “Looking? Are you kidding?”

  We rounded up Mel and the kids, who were peeking into the shop across from the hotel entrance, and drove a couple of blocks to the street where the potter was. Just before we reached the American consulate, Hal spotted what was probably the only open space at the curb and somehow managed to back into it, meriting applause from the two adult women in the car. We got out and walked down the block to the Palestinian Potter and went inside.

  It was a large place divided by a corridor the length of the business. On the right side were windows beyond which were mostly women hand-painting pieces of pottery. We stopped and watched, the children absolutely transfixed.

  “I could do that,” Sari said almost in a whisper.

  “Maybe we’ll sign you up for a ceramics class when we get back,” Mel said.

  “What’s sramics?”

  “It’s making things out of clay. There are classes for kids at the temple.”

  “Ohh,” Sari said dreamily, and I smiled. She was an artistic child, making pictures that seemed well beyond her years, and I thought Mel’s suggestion was a really good one.

  Across the corridor was a door to the shop. Hal cautioned the younger Grosses to keep their hands at their sides and walk slowly, and we went in. It was a very long store with tables and shelves filled with beautiful things. Some of them were similar to the pieces we had seen at the shop in the Old City; some were very different and much larger.

  Hal was as taken with the pottery as Mel and I were. He agreed they should get several small bowls and divided dishes that they could serve chips and dips in. I thought hummus was a better idea and said so.

  “Ah, Chris, you may never go home after this experience.” Hal handed me one of the divided dishes and I agreed we could use one, too. I liked the dark blue with the fish pattern and found one on a table.

  But what Mel and I really fell in love with were the two large plates that hung high on the wall. They had religious and symbolic drawings on them and typical Armenian border designs. Mel said she had to have one, and a very willing shop owner got a ladder and took them down. Eventually, I decided to splurge and take whichever one Mel left behind, as I liked them equally.

  “We can trade off,” she said breezily. “Six months here, six months there. I just love them.”

  Hal persuaded me to use my credit card, as I would get the best rate that way, and I set aside my inborn prejudice against charging. When we left, Mel and I each had one huge package wrapped in bubble wrap and a smaller one besides, and we were thrilled.

  We had lunch in the garden, the adults all ordering the platter of various salads that was served on a dish not too different from what Mel and I had both just bought. There were hummus and orzo and several other delectable items.

  “I think I’m in love with hummus,” Mel said, wiping the last of it up with a piece of pita bread.

  “And you pronounce it so well,” I said. “I just can’t get that back-of-the-throat sound.”

  “You will. Just keep eating it.”

  We parted and I went upstairs to find a message from Jack that said to call him back.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said. “Joshua’s not around, so I feel sort of OK giving you the info. But the minute I find him, I tell him.”

  “Sure.”

  “This plate is on a van that has not been reported missing, so I’m a little reluctant to have you chase it down. You could be dealing with the guys that kidnapped Gabe.”

  “I’ll watch myself,” I promised.

  “Where have I heard that before? Anyway, it’s a store that sells touristy things downtown, not too far from Ben Yehuda Street.” That was the name of the famous walking street. He dictated the address and the name of the store owner, Moshe Karpen.

  “I’m on my way,” I said.

  “I’ve been told parking’s almost impossible there, Chris. Why don’t you get a taxi?”

  “OK. I’ll practice what I learned from Mel.”

  “Yeah, sure. Take care of yourself.”

  I went downstairs and had the doorman get me a taxi. I was a little nervous getting in, remembering the last time and Mel’s vendetta against the driver. But to my happy surprise, the driver turned the meter on as soon as I closed the door and told him where I wanted to go. He let me out at the intersection of Ben Yehuda Street, which sloped downhill, and King George Street. I was so pleased, I gave the driver an extra shekel for his honesty, but I didn’t say why.

  I got my bearings and found the shop. It was one of those stores with a million objects for sale, everything from postcards to olive wood camels and key rings with crosses or stars of David—an equal opportunity vendor.

  Outside there were a couple of people looking at postcards and inside there was one woman looking at all the things for sale, several already in her hand. I went to the middle-aged woman behind the counter.

  “Yes?” she said, observing that I was holding nothing to buy and probably assuming I needed directions.

  “Mrs. Karpen?” I asked.

  “Yes?”

  “I want to ask you about your truck, your van.”

  Her face darkened. “What about it?”

  “Can you tell me where it is?”

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Of course I know. It’s at my house.”

  “It is?”

  “What is this about?” She spoke good English but with a slight accent that I could not identify. It was obvious my questions had disturbed her.

  “I think your van may have been used in a crime.”

  Her look turned to one of fear. She called toward the back of the store, “Moshe?” and added some words in Hebrew. An older man came out, a skullcap on his head. They exchanged a few sentences in Hebrew. Then he took his place behind the counter.

  “Come with me,” the woman said, moving toward the back of the shop.

  I followed her into a small crowded room with a desk and an open door to a bathroom.

  “What are you saying?” she said.

  “You have a van with this license p
late number.” I showed her the slip of paper the woman from the crime scene had given me.

  Mrs. Karpen moaned.

  “That’s your van?”

  She nodded.

  “Where is it, Mrs. Karpen?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “It’s not at your house?”

  She shook her head.

  “Where do you think it is?” I didn’t want to suggest that it was stolen. If she believed it was, let her come up with that herself.

  “Maybe someone took it.”

  “Who?”

  “This is terrible. You said a crime. What kind of crime?”

  “A very serious one. The police are searching for the van. They’ll probably be here later.”

  “Oh, my God.” It was almost a whimper.

  “You know where the van is, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know. I haven’t seen it for weeks.”

  “Why didn’t you report it stolen to the police?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Do you know who has it?”

  She nodded.

  “You should tell me, Mrs. Karpen.”

  “Why you? Who are you?”

  “I’m looking into a crime. I have to turn my information over to the police. It’s better if you admit it now than if they find out later.”

  “I know.” She closed her eyes and took a breath.

  Neither of us had sat down in the crowded little room. There was a chair behind the desk and a second chair, a molded plastic one that took up little space, but we had both stood. Now she sank into the chair behind the desk, put her head in her hands, and said nothing. I waited, hoping she would tell me what I needed to know.

  “It’s my nephew,” she said, looking up. “He’s a good boy, but he gets into trouble sometimes. He took it once before, a couple of years ago, but he brought it back. I couldn’t report it to the police; he’s my sister’s only child.” She seemed near tears.

  “And you’re sure he has the van?”

  “What else could it be? It’s not such a great van anyone on the street would want it.”

  “Have you talked to your nephew?”

  “I talked to my sister. She said he doesn’t have it.”

  I wasn’t all that surprised that a mother would respond that way. “Will you give me their names and addresses?”