Murder in Jerusalem (28 page)

“I don't want to just sit here doing nothing,” Esty said. “If you're gonna put up a fight, you can count me in too.”

“A pregnant woman isn't going nowhere,” Rachel Shimshi declared, narrowing her eyes as she did whenever she was angry. “That's not what I'm talking to you about. I just want you to get your hands on the keys, that's all.” She stood up and went to the kitchen. Esty, too, stood up from the couch facing the television and followed Rachel into the kitchen, where she leaned against the marble countertop watching her sister-in-law slowly soaping dirty glasses of tea.

“You're not gonna leave me at home just when you're standing up to the whole world,” Esty exclaimed.

Rachel Shimshi placed the clean glasses upside down on a towel she had spread over the formica table and looked at Esty. “Don't waste your breath,” she said quietly. “No chance I'm letting you join us, and that's final.”

For the first time in all the years they had known one another, Esty stood up to Rachel, spreading her hands behind her to grab hold of the countertop for support; she refused to accept her sister-in-law's authority. Her heavy breathing resounded in the kitchen. “You're not going to tell me what to do,” Esty told Rachel, “I'll decide for myself.” She nearly burst into tears because as soon as she had said this she was full of remorse; she had not intended to sound so aggressive, and she most especially did not wish to hurt the feelings of Avram's older sister Rachel, who had always treated her so well. “It's biting the hand that feeds you,” her mother would have said, may she rest in peace. Rachel had brought over a big pot of stuffed vegetables, had left Dudy alone at home, and had come to light the candles with her on the second night of Hanukkah. She'd brought doughnuts, too, had done everything as though she had no worries of her own, as though Shimshi were not being held in police custody and all that. Everything just so that she, Esty, would not be alone. And now how was she behaving?

She took a deep breath and continued. “I'm not letting you get into this all alone, you need as much help as you can get. So let's call all the girls, everyone will come with you.”

“I don't even have a driver's license,” Rachel Shimshi muttered.

“But I do, and so do Sarit and Simi,” Esty reminded her. “Lots of them do. For once, let other people handle this. You don't have to do everything on your own. I'll call Tikki, wait'll you see what we'll make of this.”

“But how are you going to manage with that belly? How are you going to lug boxes full of bottles? They're heavy, even when the bottles are empty.”

“Okay,” Esty said while dialing the phone hanging on the kitchen wall. “So I won't do any lugging, other people will do it. Okay?”

“The ultra-Orthodox?” Michael asked. “Because of Natasha's news broadcast?”

“No. That was bullshit. Peanuts,” Schreiber said dismissively. “No, I'm talking about something—” He looked at Natasha with apprehension.

After a moment she spoke. “It's something very serious, nothing to do with financing yeshiva students. I was intentionally misled, they wanted to get me into trouble to keep me from pursuing the big issue, and to keep me off the air. Now I really don't know if they'll ever let me broadcast anything ever again.”

“Don't worry, they'll let you,” Schreiber assured her. “Hefetz will let you, he'll convince Zadik.”

“Maybe. Maybe,” she said, glancing at the front door. “But who's going to tell Hefetz?”

“I understand you don't wish to reveal your sources,” Michael said, “but you're going to have to give us some kind of lead, point us in the right direction, anything. We've got to know at least what the issue here is.”

Natasha regarded him with suspicion, then glanced again at the door. Michael hastened to close it. “There,” he said, “no one can hear. It's only us.”

“It's,” she began, hesitantly, “it's that a while ago I heard, it happened that I, well, I came across something really big, I mean big money in the hands of Rabbi Elharizi, and not just him. Others too. Whole suitcases and boxes of dollars and gold, everything. It's being smuggled abroad.”

“Do you know where to?” Michael asked.

“We think it's to Canada, but it's not clear—it seems to be for something really huge, but I'm not sure what exactly yet. Some corrupt scheme the likes of which we've never seen before.”

“Hard to believe,” Michael muttered.

“What?” Natasha pounced. “You don't believe me?”

“No, no,” Michael responded hastily. “It's hard to believe that there could be corruption that we've never seen before.”

“It's a fact,” Natasha said. “And they don't even know how much of this affair I've already uncovered. Me and Schreiber. But today, after we were parked next to Elharizi's house and Schreiber even managed to get inside, they're bound to be suspicious.”

“Her life is in danger,” Schreiber said. “Believe me. They won't stop at sheep's heads. It's like, well, it's like the horse's head in
The Godfather
. That's probably where they got the idea.”

At that moment the door swung open suddenly, and Balilty burst into the room, short of breath, and looked around. “Like college students,” he said to himself. “This is the way we lived when we were young. Boy, it's been years…. Say, you could catch pneumonia in this place. It's sodamp here, aren't you freezing all the time?” he asked Natasha.

She shrugged.

Balilty stood in front of the bed and pointed at her. “Aren't you the one on the news?” he asked excitedly. “Aren't you the one who was talking about the yeshivas?”

Natasha looked out into the darkness—Balilty had left the door open—and Schreiber said, “She was set up. It wasn't her fault, she was set up.”

“That was clear right away, you don't have to be some kind of genius to know that,” Balilty said. “With those people you've got to check things seven times, they're—” suddenly he looked behind him. “But let's not talk about that now,” he whispered, as if in warning. “The guy from forensics—”

Just then a bearded man with a skullcap entered the room. “We took it all,” he said to Michael. “We wrapped up the head, we took fingerprints, I'm sure they used gloves. Not a trace here, nothing. We're talking professionals. We cleaned up a little too, but it's hard to see in the dark. I'm ashamed that these kind of people exist,” he added on his way out the door. “And they call themselves religious…”

Balilty moved the Russian book to the floor and sat on the stool. Schreiber was standing in the doorway, and Michael was leaning on the edge of the table, looking from time to time at the green-black sky and the tower in the framed print hanging above the bed. Distractedly he listened to the questions Balilty was asking Natasha.

“I don't understand,” Balilty persisted. “Who gave you the videotape in the first place?”

“A woman. I don't know her.”

Balilty pointed at Schreiber. “But he says earlier this evening there was another woman. She was also ultra-Orthodox. And she waited for you too, with another tape, right?”

Natasha did not respond.

Balilty looked at Schreiber. “Was it the same woman?”

Schreiber pursed his lips as if to say, How should I know?

Balilty was growing angry. “You're not going to answer me?” he asked Natasha.

Schreiber began to explain. “She can't reveal her sources on something that hasn't yet—”

“Tell me something, Natasha, haven't you learned anything yet?” Balilty asked. “You've already discovered they screwed you here, didn't you?”

“This isn't the same thing,” she said after a pause. She rubbed her pale face, and for a moment her thin, transparent skin glowed pink and a spark of defiance lit the innocent blue of her eyes as she regarded him and answered, “I already told you: this is something altogether different.”

“All right,” Balilty said with a sigh. “What can I tell you? You make your own bed and you gotta lie in it, isn't that so? Afterward, don't say I didn't tell you so.” To Michael he said, “I'm just going to let Yossi Cohen go, and I'll take the cassette from this guy,” he said, pointing at Schreiber, “the tape where he filmed the sheep's head.” Balilty shuddered. “Never heard of such a thing before. Come with me,” he said to Schreiber, and the two left the apartment.

“Maybe you should stay away from here for a few days,” Michael said, looking around. “Even if we assume your life isn't in danger, it won't be good for you to come home every evening to something like this.”

Natasha pushed the blanket off herself, stretched her legs, and sat up on the bed to look at him. Her blue-eyed look was completely innocent, but the defiant, downward turn of her long, narrow lips gave her face an expression of bitterness and maturity. Her legs dangled—in spite of the cold she was barefoot; wool socks and a pair of boots lay on the floor at the foot of the bed—and he noticed her narrow, naked feet. They looked heartbreakingly vulnerable and delicate.

She bowed her head and examined the exposed stone floor. “I don't know why you people are making such a fuss. Like you've never seen anything like this before. I mean, you see dead human bodies all the time, and here we're only talking about—”

“Right,” Michael said, pondering aloud. “But it's the element of surprise. When you're called in to see a body, you know what you're going to see. But this is something out of place. Are you sure you don't want to tell us something? Just the smallest lead?”

“I can't,” Natasha said. “It's too…not until…anyway, it's a criminal offense.”

“What is?”

“The scandal I've uncovered.”

“And nobody but Schreiber knows anything about it?”

“Arye Rubin knows,” she said after a moment. “But he himself deals a lot with dangerous material, I know I can trust him. Nothing ever stops him, he's not afraid of anyone.”

“But he's preoccupied right now, what with Tirzah's death—”

“Rubin's never too preoccupied,” she said, cutting him off. “Rubin is…do you think just because Tirzah died, he stopped working? As we speak he's busy preparing his report on the doctors, and he's working on Benny Meyuhas's film, too.”

Balilty and Schreiber appeared in the doorway. “Listen, sweetheart,” Balilty said, “there's no way you're staying here. Got that?”

Natasha remained silent.

“Don't you have anywhere to go? Family? Relatives? Friends?”

“No, she doesn't,” Schreiber said. “She's ‘all alone in the world,' as they say. She can sleep at my place.”

“No, sir,” Balilty said. “With all due respect, that's a bad idea because from what I understand you're also—”

“Did you tell him?” Natasha said, exploding. “What did you tell him, Schreiber?”

“Nothing, I swear,” Schreiber said, his hand over his heart. “He just asked what part of the city we were in earlier today, and I told him. He understood all on his own we were at Rabbi Elharizi's.”

“What are you so worried about?” Balilty asked Natasha. “No one is going to hear a word about this from me. But you can't go to Schreiber's place, who knows what's waiting for you there. Maybe they put the sheep's head here and left the body at his place. How about if we drive over and check it out first? That way you won't be waking us up again tonight.” To Michael he said, “How about we bring her in to the office? In the meantime she can make a statement.”

Schreiber watched Natasha in silence as she put on her socks and boots. Suddenly he asked Michael, “Can you take her with you? I'll be fine,” he hastened to add, “I can always go to my sister's, even in the middle of the night. She lives in Sha'arei Hesed, not far from here. But I can't bring a woman with me, even under these circumstances. My sister is super religious, and she has a lot of kids. She wouldn't understand.”

“Don't you go setting me up somewhere,” Natasha scolded him. “I can take care of myself, and—”

“You'll come with me,” Michael announced. “Anyway, we have to take a statement from you. We can do that now.”

Natasha silently picked up her canvas bag and tapped Schreiber's arm as he walked toward the door. She waited for Michael to exit, locked the door, and put the key under an empty planter. She followed Michael obediently to his car.

In less than ten minutes they had reached police headquarters at the Russian Compound. Michael led her to his office, first removing the cardboard files piled on the chair facing his desk and then motioning her to have a seat. “Coffee?” he asked, to which she nodded. “Sugar? Milk?”

“Black,” she answered. On his way to the hot water dispenser in the hallway, he glanced at her bony hands and her gaunt body and was tempted to say she could afford a little sugar.

When he returned with two cups of coffee, he found her resting her head on the desk atop her folded arms. In the wake of the silence after he closed the door, he listened to her measured breathing; he was certain she had fallen asleep, so he sat facing her as quietly as possible and stirred his coffee. As he peered into the cup, he could not resist the thought that a cigarette would be just the right thing at that moment: desired, craved, long-awaited. It seemed to him that since he gave up smoking, coffee had lost its flavor. Natasha raised her head, her eyes wide open. “I woke you up,” he apologized.

“Not at all,” she said. “I wasn't sleeping, I was just resting a minute.” Suddenly she smiled, exposing her small, white teeth, the teeth of a child. “This is actually a place somebody could rest in,” she said with wonder. “You feel safe here.”

Michael laughed.

“What's so funny? What could happen to me here?”