Hill of Secrets: An Israeli Jewish mystery novel (29 page)

People were starting to get scared. Suspicious. There were no kids in the playgrounds. Fingers were being pointed in every direction, but mostly at Meir, who knew but hadn’t filed a complaint.

Suddenly, there were a lot of good souls who sensed something was wrong with Yigal, that he seemed too strange, even a little creepy. Mothers swore that Yigal offered to perform at their birthday parties for free and they passed it up because they were a little scared of him. Every child that missed school was suspected as one of his victims. Harsh criticisms were also fired at the parents of the victims. “How could they not know?” “How did they fail to notice?” “Why didn’t they look after and educate their children?”

The news on TV dedicated half of their airtime to the extortion story that led to the discovery of the dangerous criminal. They interviewed Yigal’s neighbors, his coworkers. Most of them described a nice, gentle person, while some admitted they sensed something wasn’t right about him.

After describing the horrors, they moved on to magazine stories that are prepared ahead of time for these sorts of cases, with psychologists explaining to parents how to recognize a child who’s being abused and a review of previous convicted serial sex offenders.

I sat in front of the television, exhausted. I stared at the newscasters fervently discussing the story I had been intensively investigating in the last few days. I remembered what Yigal told me himself, that there was a lot of hypocrisy about this issue. That some of the curiosity surrounding the matter is not so innocent.

I wondered to myself if he was right. 

Wednesday, 6.10.2009

The ringing of my cell phone woke me up. I was in front of the TV, which was now showing the morning show that was talking about, of course, pedophilia. I’d fallen asleep in my uniform in front of the TV in the living room.

It was 9:00am. It was my mother on the line.

Although she was sure that I always screen her calls, I nearly never do. I decided to stray from my norm and ignore her call. If she was so certain I always blew off her calls, maybe it was time to justify the bad reputation she’d given me.

I quickly showered and put on the first thing I managed to fish out of the dryer. I was already at the door when Tsumi reminded me that he also has a morning routine. I had a deal with that dog: when I was in a rush he tried to make do with just a pee, but this time he wasn’t giving in. He was probably mad at me because I’d neglected him during the last few days. From his usual pee point he yanked me from tree to tree, as if searching for the perfect place to lay down his fragrant package.

We eventually reached Bugrashov, so I got a coffee at a small coffee shop I always walked past without checking out.

“You look familiar.” The guy making my coffee tried to make conversation.

“You must be mistaking me for somebody else.” I shrugged and shot an angry glare at Tsumi, who was standing outside, tied to the rail and barking.

“Here you go.” He handed me the cup of coffee.

“May I?” I tugged at the paper that was rolled up by the cash register.

“Yeah, sure.” He smiled. The paper rolled open and I was alarmed to see my face gracing the front page.

“Ha!” he said, surprised “I told you you look familiar! You’re the police officer who found that pedophile.”

I smiled with exaggerated humility and went out to Tsumi, who was tangled up in his leash. I sat at one of the tables and stared dumbfounded at my picture. I thought I must the least photogenic person in the world. Why couldn’t they Photoshop it, for God’s sake? Half of the paper was devoted to pedophilia and Yigal.

My cellphone rang. My mother again. This time I answered. As I thought, she had a lot to say about what was in the paper, especially my photo.

“I don’t get it,” I said after she was done with her tirade.

“What?” she asked.

“The almost obsessive way this story is being covered.”

“But, of course everyone’s going to talk about it. It’s the biggest news.”

“I think the victims would appreciate being left alone. And when I say victims, I’m not only referring to the kids Yigal attacked.”

“Who else?” She was curious.

“Yigal’s wife and daughters are victims, Meir’s family were sort of victims. Meir, and especially Yigal, are presented as monsters, but their relatives had nothing to do with what they did, though it doesn’t stop everyone from judging them.”

“You’re a good soul,” she said, and I could hear she was proud of me.

*

In the office, a pile of paperwork was waiting for me – all the testimonies that had gathered in the case, which I had to work up into an indictment. Alon buzzed and asked me to come to his room.

He sat on his chair at ease, reclining his head on his hands. His table was packed with case files, but it was clear that he was finally satisfied. A big case, covered widely in the media, had reached its end and the indictment would be strong.

"Very nice, Levinger."

I smiled with overt humility.

"I'm pleased with you. Not just me, frankly, the bosses from upstairs are happy too."

"Good."

"Sit down, sit." He let go of his head and pointed to the chair next to him. "Would you like something to drink?"

"No, thank you."

He buzzed Riki's station. "Strong, black, with ten grains of sugar," he dictated his usual request. He was in a good mood.

"I understand that since we came out with the story at the press conference yesterday, there have been quite a few calls."

"Yes," I nodded, "mostly from concerned parents. I assume that most of them are just paranoid, but everyone who turns to us will be referred to youth investigators and social services."

"And what about the Danilowitz family? Did you get a chance to talk to the families?"

"Yesterday I spoke to Meirav, Meir's older sister."

"What did she say?"

"She was very upset. I think she was a bit angry that we didn't fill her in on the results of the investigation before the press conference."

"Did you explain to her that we don't do that?"

"It didn't do much good," I said sadly.

"You sound sad."

"Yeah, I liked her, we got on well. They're a nice family and they're going through a difficult time. They’re being judged by the public for Meir's horrible actions."

"They did raise Meir, who blackmailed a sex offender without turning to the police, and eventually murdered his wife and three small kids and killed himself."

"I'm not justifying what he did. There's no doubt he committed horrible acts, and if he was alive today he should have been put in jail for many, many years."

"But?" Alon was curious.

"But I think he reached a dead end and chose to end it all rather than face reality."

"What do you mean?"

"Meir and Hanni were in massive debt, mostly because of an excessive and wasteful lifestyle led by Hanni. From what I gathered from Iris - Hanni's friend - Meir tried to tone down her spending, but it didn't help. The debt grew and grew and Meir couldn't control it."

"Until he found someone to extort."

"Not at all."

"What do you mean?"

"The money Meir extorted from Yigal was a drop in the ocean. It's only what kept them afloat. In fact, including the extortion money, they were facing bankruptcy. And Yigal testified that with his two last extortion payments, he included a letter saying he couldn’t pay any more."

"I thought he was a very wealthy man."

"They lived well, but he didn't have unlimited fortune. He was a salaried employee."

"And Meir was scared that his source of extortion was going to disappear."

"Maybe. Maybe he regretted blackmailing him in the first place."

"That's the problem with murder files, especially those where the killer disappears or kills himself. We'll never know all the answers."

"Right." I nodded sadly.

Monday, 7.13.09

I eventually went to London.

I felt like I really deserved it. I was physically and mentally exhausted from the investigation and, to my great joy, I managed to buy a plane ticket before Alon found something else for me to do.

The flurry around the Danilowitz case and Yigal wound down. The newspaper headlines were occupied by new stories, children returned to the playgrounds in Givaat Shmuel and everyone returned to their daily routines.

My family was up to their neck in preparations for Evyatar's wedding and gave me some rest.

Yinon didn't come back to me, though I hoped he would.

Everyone around me was back to normal, but I couldn't stop thinking about the case, even while I was in London. It didn't leave my mind. Something was missing for me, a lost piece of the puzzle that left the picture incomplete.

The evidence about Meir being the killer was conclusive. Right from the start of the investigation, it was clear that was the story: the apartment was locked and shut from inside, the way the bodies were lying, the gun with Meir's finger prints on it that was lying near his body. The computer hard drive that was deleted, the computer search for how to make a makeshift silencer from mineral wool.

We also found a motive: a bad financial situation and a family rift. Meir found someone to extort, but this source didn't have enough money.

As far as the police were concerned, the file was closed and moved on to the state attorney's office. But despite everything being closed, despite the compliments showered on me, there was still something missing for me. I felt as if there was one more secret that I hadn't revealed.

My desk was a bit messier than I had left it before my trip. I skimmed over the papers and files that had been added to the original mess. A small note peeked through all of the files.

"Call Meirav, Meir Danilowitz's sister."

*

"Meirav?"

"This is she." She answered in a matter-of-fact voice.

"This is Hadas Levinger from Israel Police."

"Hello," she switched to a softer tone. "I understand you were out of the country."

"Yes. I went to London, I got back last night."

"Sounds fun. How was it?"

"It was nice. I rested, walked around, saw a couple of good plays. It was fun to get away for a while, also from Tel-Aviv's dense weather."

"Good, I'm happy for you. You deserve it."

"Thank you."

We were quiet for a moment. Although I called her, it was clear to me that Meirav wasn't looking for me to ask me how London was.

"Ahh…" she sighed, "I called because I found something important." I felt my heartbeat accelerate. "I have to admit we found it last week, but on Saturday our whole family sat together and we decided to pass on what we found to you. I’d be happy if it didn't get any further, but I know that's not going to happen."

I nodded my acceptance, not wanting to stop her flow of speech.

"You just have to believe me that we only found this a couple of days ago."

"I believe you."

"Good."

"What did you find?" I asked carefully.

"I found Meir's suicide note," she said simply, and I felt all the blood in my body flow right to my feet.

"What?" I gasped. How the hell did the Danilowitz family just now find Meir's suicide note?

"On that horrible night," Meirav explained, "Meir sat and wrote my parents a letter. He sent it to my email, because my parents don't have an email account, not an active one anyway."

"So how did you only just now get this email?"

"Meir didn't usually send me emails. I have a YAHOO email address that I opened years ago and hardly used."

"And he didn't know you don't use that email account?"

"I guess not. I think I sent him something from that account not long ago, so I guess that's the address he had. In any case, I hardly open this account and when I do, it's usually full of junk. I usually delete them without even reading anything. By sheer chance, I looked through the mail this time, since we had an unpleasant situation in the office a little while ago where we deleted an important email without checking."

"Can you send me that email?"

"That's what I called for."

I dictated my email address to her and waited in front of the computer impatiently. Since Meir had deleted the hard disk, unfortunately, that mail had been deleted for good.

About five minutes later, I received a new message. Meirav forwarded me the email she received from Meir on May 18
th
, at two o’clock in the morning:

To my dear family,