The Bar Mitzvah Murder

by Lee Harris

  “The source is a little unclear.”

  “Are you saying he was killed for those diamonds?”

  “I’m saying he was kidnapped for them. Why he was killed is a mystery to me.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t have them and they killed him trying to find out where the diamonds were.”

  “That would be a logical conclusion.”

  “Did he acquire the diamonds from you?”

  He smiled. “No, my dear. He did not.”

  “Were you expecting to acquire them from him?”

  “As I told you, I am largely retired. And I don’t deal in stolen merchandise.”

  “I don’t know why you’re telling me these things,” I said.

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  I couldn’t see how. The suggestions he was making struck me as wild. I hadn’t known Gabe Gross, but I was very reluctant to think of him as a criminal. I looked at my watch again. This conversation was making me very uncomfortable. “I really have to go,” I said. “Thank you for the coffee. It’s been very pleasant.” I got up and left the table before he had a chance to ask for the check.

  I stood in the lobby for a few moments, trying to decide what to do. Then I went back up to my room. I didn’t want to see this man again. I didn’t know if he was telling me facts or obfuscations. I didn’t understand all of what he was saying. And I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out what his purpose was in telling me these things.

  I sat in our room for a while, looking over the Herald Tribune. I felt quite annoyed. I had wanted to visit the shop, but instead I had wasted half an hour listening to vague accusations that led nowhere. Finally, I changed for the evening so Jack could have sole use of the bathroom when he got back. Then I went to pick him up.

  When he was in the car, I told him about Simon Kaplan. “He’s an annoyance,” I said.

  “Sounds like it. If he shows up while I’m there, I’ll get rid of him for good. OK with you?”

  “Fine.”

  “I don’t like the whole thing. What’s this talk of diamonds? Didn’t Marnie say nothing had been taken from the safe?”

  “Yes. And she has an inventory. I’m sure she would have told me if something like diamonds was missing. It’s not the sort of thing you overlook.”

  “I don’t get this guy.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  “Well, let’s forget about the whole thing and have a good meal. Hal’s got a reservation at a French restaurant that he says is supposed to be great.”

  “French,” I said in surprise. “What’s a French restaurant doing in Jerusalem?”

  “You think Israelis only eat hummus?”

  “I would if I lived here.”

  “Give up all those tuna sandwiches?”

  I thought about it. “Maybe I’m ready.”

  “Wow. Never thought I’d hear that from my wife.”

  Our dinner was incredible. The men fought over the check at the end and Hal won. It must have cost a fortune, but the meal was excellent, really French. We said our good-byes at our cars. The Grosses were leaving the next day, and Mel promised to look in on Eddie regularly till Jack and I got back. As we were staying till the middle of the following week, Jack’s parents had agreed to stay with Eddie in our house so he could go to school. Two weeks was long enough.

  During dinner I asked Hal if he knew anything about Simon Kaplan, and he didn’t. But he thought that a connection between Gabe and diamonds was a stretch. The closest he came to diamonds was giving them to his wife.

  When we left, Jack drove up to the university, which is at a high elevation, and we got out and walked around. The air smelled fresh and the sky was clear. The stars were different from the New York area, but eventually I was able to find some familiar constellations. I have always wondered what the sky looked like in Bethlehem on that special night, and although I am not likely to get there, this was pretty close.

  Students walked by, looking for all the world like the students I teach in New York State. They giggled the same way, walked as couples the same way. And stopped to kiss the same way. It was nice to know there were still some absolutes in the world besides the Ten Commandments.

  Jack and I were sitting on a low concrete wall. “I’m going to look up this Kaplan guy in my database tomorrow,” Jack said. “See if he turns up.”

  “Well, he showed me a passport.”

  “He could have another one in another pocket.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “He could register in the hotel under one name and give out another.”

  “Which would make him unfindable. How would he get another passport?”

  “He could have picked one up in France or England after the war. If he was a refugee, they’d probably give him papers without a lot of hassle. People didn’t have documents when they were let out of concentration camps. Or if he worked for any government agency, he would have access to people who could get things done in irregular channels. Europe’s records were a mess by the end of World War Two.”

  “Ah. Yes, he does have a very slight accent. He’s probably not American by birth.”

  “So he may not be in the database with the name he gave you.”

  “It gets more and more complicated,” I said.

  “They always do, till you get to the end.”

  It was the same old story.

  21

  I felt a little sad the next morning. Today I was completely on my own. There were several places I wanted to visit, but I would have to check the map carefully and write myself clear notes that I could glance at as I drove, since my super navigator was winging her way home.

  I dropped Jack off and went back to the room to get myself set for my day. My first stop would be Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial site.

  It was a beautiful spot. Inside in the dim light of the cavelike atmosphere, I felt the magnitude of all the deaths, all the suffering. As I had many other times, I wondered how people could treat other people so harshly.

  Outside, the sun blinded me for a moment and tears formed in my eyes. I brushed them away and began to walk along the Street of the Righteous Gentiles. Here were the names of some people who had helped, who managed to save lives. I read every name.

  It was an awesome experience. I had weighed whether or not to visit this place, but I was glad I had. I would remember it in a special way.

  I had lunch and did a little more sightseeing before I returned to the hotel. Jack and I had decided to spend our weekend in the western part of the country, and I wanted to check routes on the map and mark the places we hoped to visit. I sat at the desk and figured out how we would drive. Like last Friday, I would pick Jack up and we would take off.

  As I was making notes, the phone rang. When I picked it up, I recognized Marnie Gross’s voice.

  “Chris? Is this a bad time to call?”

  “No, not at all. Is something up?”

  “I want to talk to you. When are you coming home?”

  “Next Wednesday.”

  “That’s almost a week away.” She sounded very unhappy.

  I explained about Jack taking extra weekend days and how he had to make it up at the end.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Don’t know what?”

  “I have to talk to someone. I trust you, Chris. You seem to know what you’re doing and you’re not family.”

  I smiled at that. There was something positive about not being family. “Maybe you should talk to the police about whatever it is.”

  “I can’t.”

  I waited, but she said nothing more. “What is it, Marnie? You called me all this distance away. It must be important.”

  “It is.” She said something that sounded more like a moan than a word. “I found something in the safe that’s not on the inventory.”

  “I see.” I could feel anticipation building, remembering what Joseph had said. “You have the inventory?” I asked.

  “I fou
nd it, yes. Everything on it is in the safe, but there’s something else in there, too. Gabe must have—I don’t know. Maybe he put something in at the last minute and didn’t write it down.”

  “Will you tell me what it is?”

  “It’s—I don’t know, Chris. It’s very upsetting. He never said a word to me about it. I think maybe he was planning to give me a present.”

  “A present.”

  “It’s a small bag. I didn’t see it at first. Then, when I went over the contents of the safe with the inventory in my hand, I spotted it. It has some diamonds in it, loose diamonds, each one wrapped in something that looks like pale blue parchment. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

  “Diamonds,” I said, trying to keep from sounding as surprised as I felt.

  “Five, I think. A good size. I have a beautiful diamond engagement ring. These are all larger than that.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “He must have been planning to surprise you.”

  “Why aren’t they on the inventory then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not doing anything with them, Chris. They’re in my safe, so they belong to me. Everything in that safe belongs to me. It’s just, as I said, I was unsettled when I found them.”

  “I can understand why. Marnie, I have a question to ask you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you know a man named Simon Kaplan? Or did Gabe know him or mention him?”

  “It doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “He’s in his seventies, I think, rimless glasses, kind of roly-poly, a pleasant-looking man.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “He approached me in the hotel you were staying in. He claims to have done business with Gabe and his father.”

  “Really?” She sounded surprised.

  “That’s what he said. He told me a few things that seemed to be helpful, but in the end, I don’t think they were. He makes me uneasy. I just wondered if the name or description rang a bell.”

  “I can call Gabe’s secretary and ask.”

  “That would be a good idea. Let me know, OK?”

  “I will. I’m writing down what you said. Chris, will you call me as soon as you get home? I want to see you in person and talk to you about what I found.”

  “I’ll call you when we get back.”

  “Thank you, Chris. Thank you very much. I feel better now that I’ve told you.”

  I wondered if I did.

  I called Jack and told him Sister Joseph might have been on the right track, that Marnie had found something in the safe.

  “You gonna tell me what or leave me hanging?”

  “Jack, this has to be between you and me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You can’t tell the police what Marnie told me.”

  “I foresee a problem.”

  “That’s why I’m saying this. If you feel obliged to pass along what I know, I won’t tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “She told me in confidence. It took her a while before she said it. She’s very nervous about this. I can’t be responsible for having the police show up at her house with a warrant. I’m not saying anything else till you give me a promise.”

  “You’d better keep it to yourself. If you tell me something material, I have to run with it. You know that.”

  “OK. I’m getting things together for our trip tomorrow. I’ll see you this evening.”

  “You bet.”

  I felt very awkward. These things had come up before, but not quite this way. This wasn’t an informant giving me information that would lead to a killer; this was an innocent person—at least, I believed she was innocent—telling me something that might involve her husband or herself in suspicious activities. The fact that Marnie had told me, the fact that she had been so reluctant, made it seem that she knew nothing at all about the diamonds she had found in the safe. Had I not met Simon Kaplan, I would have assumed the same thing she had, that Gabe had bought some diamonds to make a gift for her. But I had met Simon Kaplan and I could not figure out how all these pieces fit together. It simply couldn’t be a coincidence that the little man had mentioned diamonds twenty-four hours before Marnie admitted to finding the stones in her safe.

  22

  I picked Jack up at the usual time and got into the passenger seat as he neared the car. He slid inside and gave me a quick kiss, then started the motor and took off.

  “Looks like your digging on the fake ambulance was a good lead.”

  “They find it?”

  “It was returned to the owner. Karpen, I think, is the name.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yup. Joshua went over and talked to them himself. Then he hauled in the nephew and gave him a hard time.”

  “Oh, dear,” I said.

  “He’s OK. But he gave up the names. Or one of them.”

  “The ambulance attendants?”

  “If you want to call them that.”

  “Then we’re close,” I said.

  “Well, not that close. Either they really don’t know who they were working for or they’re good at what they do. They said it was an American, no name, everything in cash; you know the drill.”

  “What were they supposed to do?”

  “Just what they did. Kidnap Gabe Gross, make a copy of his house key, find out the combination to the safe. Also the code to the security system, but they had a set of priorities. The code was last on the list, and by the time they got the safe combination out of him he was dead.”

  “How horrible.”

  “But they claim someone else killed him, if you want to believe it. They figured they could get by the security system, but they couldn’t get into the safe without the combination. It was all very carefully worked out.”

  “And what were they supposed to do when they opened the safe?”

  “These guys claim they have no idea, and I believe them. That was all on the U.S. side of things, out of their hands. But they swear they had nothing to do with beating Gabe to death and I don’t believe that for a minute.”

  “If they didn’t do it, who did?” I asked.

  “They’re playing dumb. Some mysterious guy showed up, took over. It’s all crap. They did it. Joshua agrees.”

  I found myself agreeing, too. There were enough people involved in this business already, two in Jerusalem, one or two in the States; it was hard to believe there was also an expert in beating someone to death. “So we’ve got two killers in custody and we still don’t know who ordered the kidnapping and killing.”

  “Right. If they’re telling the truth. They may not be. Remember the Schloss guy told you he didn’t know who these two were and, of course, he did. It just took a little probing to get it out of him.” Jack made the turn across traffic into the street where the hotel was. I always held my breath as he did this.

  “Well, I’m glad those two are in custody, but I have the feeling the police and I are no closer to figuring out who ordered this.”

  “But you’ve made a lot of progress. The answer may be in the States.”

  “Marnie wants to see me when I get back.”

  “So she’s got more to tell you, huh?”

  I smiled. “That’s what she says.”

  “I have a feeling she may be the key.”

  “Well, I’ll know next week. I don’t think she’s going to tell me over the phone, and I’m not bothering her about this. I just want to keep her confidence.”

  “I looked up your Simon Kaplan.”

  “Oh, tell me. I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Clean or dirty, he’s not in our database.”

  “Under the name Simon Kaplan.”

  “Right.”

  “I asked Marnie, when I talked to her this afternoon, if she had heard of him. She hadn’t.”

  “Or said she hadn’t.” He parked the car and we got out.

  “Goes without saying.”

  “Well, tonight we say good-bye
to our son for a while.”

  “I’m not concerned,” I said bravely. “He’ll be fine.” I wondered if I would. My son and I would be five thousand miles apart for almost a week. Thinking about it made me nervous.

  “So will you,” my prescient husband said. “I promise.”

  There were lots of hugs and kisses at dinner that night, and I handed my poor mother-in-law a list of things to help her around the house. She had visited enough times that she knew where I kept the silver and dishes and glasses, but I hadn’t anticipated that she would have to turn up the heat and put the garbage out. The things we keep in our everyday memory amaze me. No wonder we sometimes think there’s no room for anything else.

  Eddie assured us he would show Grandma how to do everything and I had a feeling he probably knew a lot more than I thought he did, although the temperature setting on the thermostat was beyond his height and knowledge. As long as he was warm, he didn’t ask any questions.

  Finally we said good night and got into our respective cars. I felt my eyes tearing a bit. I knew it was silly; I hadn’t seen Eddie very much in the time we’d been here, but just the thought of all that distance between us rocked me a little. Jack must have suspected as much, because he put his arm around me as we went to the car and then held my hand as long as he could as he drove.

  Tomorrow we were exploring the western part of the country. We still had one adventure left before our stay was over.

  At twelve twenty-five on Friday I made a decision. At twelve-thirty I called Joseph. It was the early hour that bothered me. By this time she would have returned from morning prayers. I wasn’t sure anyone would even answer the phone, but it didn’t hurt to try. I listened to ring after ring and was about to hang up when a familiar voice answered.

  “St. Stephen’s Convent.” It was a nervous-sounding Sister Angela.

  “Angela, it’s Chris. Forgive me for calling so early.”

  “Kix!” she said excitedly. “Are you calling from the Holy Land?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m about to leave for a weekend trip. Is Joseph available?”

  “Hold on. I’ll get her. I just saw her go by.”

  I waited, hoping this wouldn’t cost a fortune.

  “Hello? Chris? Is that you?”

  “Joseph, yes, it’s me. I’m so sorry to bother you at this hour.”