Hill of Secrets: An Israeli Jewish mystery novel (13 page)

"First of all, there was one interesting search the week prior to the murder. I assume Meir ran this search. He was looking for improvised methods to create silencers for a gun."

"You don't say?" I opened my eyes. This fact definitely reinforced the assumption that Meir was the killer, not someone outside the family. It also reinforced the assumption that this was a premeditated murder.

"I also searched their files."

"Did you find anything?"

"Yes, it wasn't particularly difficult seeing as there weren't too many. Most of the files were family pictures and movies. I didn't go through all of them, but I made several CDs for you and for the families. I assume they'll want these mementos." Amos's heart was always in the right place. "There was also one family slide show on PowerPoint and a few Word documents." Amos stopped his flow of words, turned to his desk, poked among the piles of papers for a few seconds and pulled out one page. "Among the Word files, I also found this one." He put on his glasses, perused the page and passed it on to me.

Across the page, one sentence was printed in a giant font: "I'm tired of waiting so long, if you don't give me what I asked for, I'm going to the police."

"Wow," I spat out. "Can you tell if it's a file that he received or created?"

"Not for sure, because he could have received this by email and saved it on the computer. I have a log of file creation times, I don't know if they were actually written on the computer or only received."

"And what do you think?"

"I'm almost certain that this file was created on the computer and not received. First, I went through all of the emails that were received with attached files over the three month period surrounding the date this file was created, and there's no such email. Secondly, the file was not actively saved on the computer, but written and then erased. Meaning the writer, and I presume we're talking about Meir, wrote the sentence, probably printed it and then erased it, or more precisely, didn't save the file."

"If he didn't save the file, how does it exist?"

"Nothing is ever really erased from a computer." Amos smiled knowingly.

"And this is all you found?" I asked as if Amos hadn’t just handed me the main puzzle piece in this story.

"As I told you, there wasn’t too much in the computer. Whoever erased the files and the history didn't do a very professional job. There's a chance that there were more files that I wasn't able to restore, but I get the feeling that this family was used by the entire family, so Meir was careful not to use the computer for secret personal uses."

"You mean he used the computer at work?"

"Maybe. Although, in work places, there's usually more monitoring goes on. Where did he work?"

"At Discount Bank."

"Then I doubt there's anything on his computer. In large companies like banks, for instance, there's very careful monitoring of the workers' computers, for safety reasons like viruses, fear of industrial espionage, that kind of stuff. I assume Meir was aware of the fact that there's a risk that suspicious emails or files would be tracked down and he avoided using his work computer."

"So where else can we look?"

"I would look for a flash drive—it's the best and easiest way to save information outside of a computer."

"This changes the whole picture." Alon waved the letter that Amos had found on the Danilowitz family computer. Our assumption was that Meir was blackmailing someone.

"Right," I said, "but I don't think whoever Meir was blackmailing is the killer."

"Why not?"

"First of all, the gun was Meir's registered gun. All the evidence at the scene, the placement of the gun, the gunpowder marks, all strengthen the assumption that Meir killed himself."

"That doesn't mean anything—we both know that a professional killer knows how to fake a scene and use the victim's gun."

"Right, but Amos discovered a search made on the family's computer a number of days prior to the murder - for improvised silencers for guns."

"What do you mean?" Alon realized the murder was premeditated and not an act of temporary insanity.

He sat behind his desk full of paperwork and stared at the page imprinted with the threatening sentence. Alon was the complete opposite of Amos from the computer department. He was an esteemed, veteran police officer. Since he hasn't been part of on-site investigations in years, he makes sure to wear a uniform that fits his wide, muscular physique immaculately. To my surprise, I discovered that he was forty-eight years old this last Chanukah, because he looked much younger. Short, full hair, light brown eyes that charmed quite a few women and a constant tan, a reminder of the times when he spent full days in the blistering sun.

I looked at Alon bent over Meir's letter. His table was covered with paperwork related to the Georgian Mafia case. In recent weeks, there had been a serious breakthrough in the investigation, following the consent of the Mafia leader's right-hand man, Igor Michaelshvilli, to cross the lines and turn state's evidence against his boss and his uncle on his mother's side, Yitzchak Mirialshvilli.

From that aspect, Meir Danilowitz found the least convenient time, as far as Alon was concerned, to kill his entire family and himself. Alon thought this was a case which was difficult in terms of the scene and simple in terms of deciphering. All of the evidence found at the scene was unequivocal about Meir's guilt, and the objective of the investigation was mainly to confirm this assumption and give a reasonable explanation to Meir's motives. The letter complicated everything.

"Do you need help?" he asked desperately, but we both knew there was no available manpower.

"Not right now. I still believe Meir is the killer so I'm not pressed for time."

"There's immense media pressure on this story. Sometime, we have to answer all the questions. There's also a matter of the unit's prestige here."

I nodded, remembering that the police has its politics as well.

*

I realized I need to return to Meir and Hanni’s house to conduct a more thorough search. Meir had something to hide and I hoped to find it in the house.

I assumed that if Meir wanted to hide something he’d hide it among his things and not somewhere where Hanni might find it. This ruled out the kitchen and the two children’s rooms. The living room was pretty clean of objects and I moved on to the bedroom. The bedroom closet was full of Hanni’s clothes. Meir’s clothes were allotted a quarter of the closet’s space, neatly folded, just like all of the rest of the clothes in the closets.

I imagined Hanni was the one who took care of the folding and tidying up, so the chances of finding something were minute. I decided not to be lazy and looked through every shirt and trousers, every pair of socks were opened and after about forty five minutes I had to admit that my presumption was correct. Meir didn’t hide anything in the closet.

I moved on to the study. I looked around, not needing another barren search. Still waiting in my office were a few photo albums and a folder of pay stubs. Maybe I’d find something there, but I doubted it. The binder and albums were too available. The closets were very tidy, meaning Hanni’s reach extended everywhere. So where the hell could Meir hide anything in this house if he really wanted to? I looked at the cupboard in the study and tried to think where I would hide my secrets.

Where no one would look,
my inner voice told me. On the top two shelves of the study’s storage unit were lined up, in order of height, holy books, dictionaries, atlases and books of pictures of the views of the Land of Israel. I pulled the chair up to the book shelf and pulled down the holy books. Maybe Meir trusted God with his secret. I was wrong. I climbed up again and pulled down the atlases and dictionaries, and was disappointed again. Among the travel books and Israel’s views was an album
Horizon,
of aerial photographs of the country’s views. On the cover of the album, a greeting card was attached. Meir received the book when he finished his officer training. I opened the large book and a medium-sized large envelope fell out of it.

The envelope was addressed to Post Box 50219, Tel Aviv, with no recipient name, only the post box address. The envelope had already been opened, so I peered into it.

Inside the envelope were ten 200 shekel bills.

Bingo. Meir was blackmailing someone.

Monday, 5.25.2009

The envelope immediately went to forensics. A number of finger prints were found on it, some of them Meir’s, but none of them Hanni’s. Alon decided that the discovery of the envelope and the letter left no choice but to expand the investigation. He had to pull Shachar out of the team investigating, a suspect on bribe and fraudulent crimes in a government office, and sent him to Discount Bank. Shachar was the department’s jack of all trades. After years in traffic police, he began law school and finally managed to get into investigations.

Our assumption was that there were only two options for extortion: either Meir found out something un-kosher at his work place and began blackmailing someone, or the blackmail was on personal grounds. Shachar, who had a background in white collar investigations, was sent to interrogate employees of the Discount Bank and I continued with the personal inquiry. I asked Shachar to send Amos any electronic devices he found in Meir’s office.

Post Box 50219 was located at the post office near Meir’s workplace. I showed the branch manager my police badge and the warrant we’d obtained to open the post box.

Meir had started using the post box about ten months earlier—in July 2008. To open a post box, all a person had to do was identify himself and pay a toll of 180 shekels. The branch manager couldn’t say how active Box 50219 was, but thought it was probably not as active as boxes belonging to companies. She didn’t recall Meir either. She got chills from the fact that the infamous Meir Danilowitz had a post box in her post office.

Who was Meir extorting? Did the person being extorted know him? Did he even know the identity of his blackmailer? Maybe Meir was blackmailing the wrong source? Maybe he was blackmailing a criminal element who was getting back at Meir?

Meir’s office was located a few meters from the post office and I decided to go up and visit Shachar. That afternoon, I was finally meeting with Meir’s parents, who finished the
Shiva
that morning, and the meeting at the post office was shorter than anticipated.

Shachar was waiting for me in Meir’s office.  We asked to speak again with Danit, Meir’s department manager, before we began interrogating workers. Danit was late that day and Shachar had to wait for her to arrive. While he was waiting he went through Meir’s office.

“Did you find anything interesting?”

“No.” Shachar wrinkled up his nose. He was obviously bored and disappointed with the fact that he was forced to leave the fascinating case he had been working on the last few weeks. “I turned over all of the files here and found nothing, no letters or envelopes.”

“Did you go through the computer? Find a flash drive, maybe?”

“He had three in the drawer.” He collected the three little sticks he found and handed them to me. “There’s nothing on them. The first one has family pictures on it, the second has a few files and financial reports and the third is empty.”

“Is there anything interesting in the business files? Anything suspicious?”

“Not at first glance. They’re the financial reports of a medium sized commercial company called Mega-byte Services Inc. and a few files that analyzed the company’s results.”

“Did you check up on this company?”

“I did a quick search online—it’s a company that sells computers and computer parts and provides computer services in the customer’s home. Nothing criminal or suspicious. I think he just saved the data on the disk because he had to take it to a meeting.”

“And what about the computer? Did you find anything on the computer?”

“I didn’t have too much time to look, but I don’t think there’s anything here. Of course, we need to get it to Amos to be inspected, but in a quick, shallow glance, there’s nothing here.”

Danit’s secretary carefully knocked on the door. Danit had arrived.

We shut the door behind us and sat across from Danit. This time she was a little less emotional than the last time I talked to her. Then, she was still in shock from Meir’s actions.

“Is there anything new that you need me for?” She cut to the chase.

“Yes, there is.” I tried to assume a look of utmost importance. “Before I share what I have to say with you, I hope it’s clear to you that everything that’s said in this room stays in this room. This is secret investigation material and if it gets out it can cause great damage.”

Danit looked at me in shock. She had no idea how she could be connected to what happened in the Danilowitz home a week earlier.

“We have reasonable grounds to suspect that Meir Danilowitz was blackmailing someone.” Danit’s eyes opened in shock. “Right now, we have no idea who he was extorting and why he was doing it, and that’s why we’re here.”

“Do you think he was extorting one of our customers?” she said in a voice higher than usual. She was either totally surprised, or she could nominate herself for an Oscar.

“Maybe one of the other workers?” Shachar chimed in.

“Allow me to introduce Shachar Manor, who’s supporting me in the investigation in light of these new discoveries.” I introduced Shachar to Danit. “Can you describe for me the clients who worked with Meir and with your department? Did you have any business with any dubious individuals or bodies?”

Danit raised both her hands. “You can stop your assumptions right now! We do not—and never had—any dubious clients or businesses. We make sure to give credit based on legitimate business only.”

“What can you tell us about Mega-byte Services?” Shachar shot out.

“Not too much, a very solid company. The owners are young people, very creative and hardworking.”

“Did Meir handle their account?”

“Yes.”

“Was there any change in the activity with them recently?”

“I wasn’t at the heart of the matter yet, but Meir was there two weeks ago, when they asked for a significant expansion of their credit limit.” This probably explained the reason why the company’s data was on the disc. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary, it’s pretty much the main aspect of our work here,” she immediately added.

“Because of new findings in the case, we’d like to interrogate the rest of the department’s workers,” I explained. “Shachar will be conducting most of the inquiries at the bank, and in order to avoid summoning all of the workers to the station, we’d appreciate you allotting a small room for us to conduct the interrogations in. I assume the interrogations will cause a rumor mill. There are very few people who are aware of the fact that there’s a suspicion that Meir was extorting someone and you’re one of them. Leaking this information would constitute a serious obstruction of justice.” I warned Danit, and she considered it a threat.

“There’s no need to threaten.” She seemed angry. “My team and I will cooperate while maintaining the necessary level of secrecy.”

“No threats,” Shachar decided to assume the role of good cop, “We’re just keeping everything clear.”

“Everything is crystal clear.” She smiled a phony smile.

*

After we left her room, Danit called her secretary who, a few minutes later, led us to a small, stylish conference room at the end of the hall.

"Danit said you need a room to interview people in," she said and turned on the light. "Do you want anything to drink? To eat?"

"Cold water." Shachar said.

"Black coffee," I smiled, "and a list of all of the department workers' names and numbers."

"No problem," she said and closed the door behind her.

She returned in a short while with the drinks and the list of workers.

I had a little more time, so I decided to stay and hear some of Meir's co-workers before going to visit Natan and Sarah Danilowitz.

In about two hours I managed to speak with four of Meir's co-workers. Meir did, indeed, spend many hours at work, a fact that apparently didn't help his popularity in the department. His co-workers didn’t think he was a brilliant banker, but they admitted he put far more effort into his work than was required of him. One of those questioned admitted he was angry at Meir a few months earlier since he managed, by way of flattery, to steal from under his nose a client who yielded a handsome bonus. It was obvious that the guy was emotional from the interrogation itself and gave this information with no pressure from Shachar or myself. Shachar and I smiled to one another when he left the room—he hadn’t aroused our suspicions.