A Possibility of Violence (18 page)

Jennifer Salazar did not have a criminal record and had never been investigated by the police. When she was twenty she got married, but her marriage to Julius Andreda lasted only four years. In 2002 she traveled to Israel for the first time and stayed there for a year, and after an additional period of time in Manila returned to Israel. The last time she entered the Philippines was on July 11, 2005, and she left two weeks later. According to Garbo's report, Jennifer Salazar did not have children, apparently because she didn't inform the authorities in Manila about the birth of her sons in Israel, just as she didn't inform them about her marriage to Sara. And since 2004 she hadn't paid income taxes in the Philippines.

Avraham looked at the old picture that was attached to the report and had been taken more than twenty years ago.

Jennifer Salazar's hair was long and black and her face was wide. It seemed to him that he saw a mole under her lower lip. He tried to imagine the young Filipino woman in the company of Sara and was unable to—perhaps because in the picture she was so many years younger than he was.

A little before midnight Avraham received a final report from the credit-card company: two hours earlier the card stolen from Ilanit Hadad's mother had been used again, at a restaurant on Seagulls' Beach in the tourist section of Eilat. They had indeed fled to Eilat, but other than that it seemed they were doing everything possible in order to get caught, and Avraham recalled Uzan's smugness during the interrogation, the constant smile below his well-groomed mustache. Uzan was simply too arrogant. He joined those gathered around the suspicious suitcase next to the daycare, took off running from the beat cop who asked him to identify himself, waited patiently long hours in the interrogation room, and didn't reveal any fear. While he sat in the police station, Ilanit Hadad called the daycare that she had been fired from and declared that the suitcase was “just the beginning.” And all that time the smile had barely left his face.

When Avraham was on his way to the station again, the following morning, after a short sleep at home, he was informed that Uzan's black Honda was identified on Barnea Street in Eilat.

Uzan continued being reckless. At the restaurant where he paid with the stolen credit card he spent time in the company of Ilanit Hadad and two male friends, one of whom was known to the police. Eilat district detectives discovered this after a short questioning of the restaurant's owner, and before morning, when they arrived at the building where the man known to the police resided, in the Palm neighborhood, they discovered Uzan's Honda. It wasn't even covered up. Did his smugness stem from his certainty that Chava Cohen wouldn't regain consciousness? Maybe he was also convinced that even if she did wake up, she wouldn't reveal her assailants, just as she had lied in the matter of the suitcase? Something about the violent connection between Chava Cohen and her assailants wasn't clear to Avraham, but that morning, word from the hospital came that she still couldn't be interrogated. He hoped that the arrest would be carried out soon, mainly because he wanted to speak with Ilana about Sara and his wife and thought that after Uzan and his girlfriend were caught she would be available to listen to him, but the Eilat detectives didn't break into the apartment immediately because they didn't know how many people were staying there and if they were armed.

In the meantime, Avraham called the border police to ask the question that wouldn't let him go during the night, before he fell asleep: “Is it possible that Jennifer Salazar didn't leave Israel, even though on the police computers there appears an exit registration?” The clerk was adamant. She said that “There's no way that's possible,” but afterward added that entry and exit records are also maintained by the Population and Immigration Authority of the Ministry of the Interior and that he should check there as well.

A clock ticked inside him, like the clock that was lying inside the suitcase found next to the daycare.

Though in his imagination it was a stopwatch and was connected to the picture of Jennifer Salazar that he saw last night, and to Sara's face, and to the plane that was getting ready to take off for Manila tomorrow with Sara and his two children.

Ma'alul came into his office in order to get an update on what happened in Eilat and just then Ilana called to tell him that Uzan had left the apartment on Barnea Street, accompanied by Ilanit Hadad. The district detectives drove after him in their Citroën, and when they got on Highway 90 leaving the city, three mobile units blocked the way after the Eilat Interchange. At eleven Ilana called again to announce that the hunt was over. Uzan had tried to turn the car around and flee when he saw the police barricade but was caught after a short chase.

“That was quick. We did great work,” Ilana said, and Avraham asked, “Can I come see you in an hour?”

She asked if he wanted to talk about the next step in the investigation and he said yes, though that wasn't what he wanted.

 

AND ILANA LOOKED AT HIM WITH
amazement, like the day before in the corridor of the hospital, when he told her why he had come. She was eating a salad when he entered her office. The family picture with her husband and children again wasn't in its place on the desk and the wall clock was resting at an angle on the floor. Her mood was improved, perhaps because of the quick arrest, before Avraham told her that he wanted to arrest Sara and bring him in for urgent questioning.

“Arrest him for what, Avi? We arrested the assailants two hours ago. And there's already a match between Uzan's fingerprints and prints we found at the scene. What do you want to question Sara about?”

He knew this was what she'd ask, and he didn't have a clear answer.

He wanted to question him because the stopwatch connected in his imagination to the picture of Jennifer Salazar was ticking fast and because Sara had lied to him during questioning. And also because he couldn't succeed in resolving the contradiction between the exit registration and the report Garbo sent him, according to which Jennifer Salazar hadn't entered the Philippines since her brief visit there in 2005. And perhaps mainly he wanted to interrogate him because he couldn't bear the thought that tomorrow Sara would get on a plane to Manila with his children before he could manage to find out what he was hiding and why.

Ilana ate the salad from a red plastic container and listened to him. At the beginning of their conversation she was still patient. She said, “It's impossible to arrest him because he lied to you during questioning, Avi. He's not a suspect at present for any crime, and besides that, I'm considering sending you to Eilat to interrogate Uzan and Ilanit Hadad. They're keeping silent and you know the story better than anyone else, maybe you can get something out of them. Or at least out of her.” She stopped and examined the surprised look on his face, then added, “I also want the resolution of this case to be in your name. From the beginning to the end. And it still isn't closed. We don't know what the motive was for the assault, and why Chava Cohen hid the fact that Uzan and his girlfriend placed the fake bomb, or why she agreed to meet with them. Do you remember that we said we'd close the case before Yom Kippur? We're almost there. And I want this victory to be all yours.”

He had no intention of flying to Eilat. Or of interrogating anyone other than Sara, at least until he clarified where Sara's wife was. And the “victory” in the assault case didn't interest him.

“What do I need to fly to Eilat for?” he asked. If he could succeed in persuading Ilana that he was focused on the assault investigation but that he had a few spare hours, maybe she'd agree to allow him to question Sara, he thought suddenly. He said to her, “Why don't we bring them here? And you know what? If they don't talk and we want to get a confession out of them, despite the fact that we have enough evidence, we could use the accident trick on them on the way from Eilat,” and she looked at him and smiled.

“That's not a bad idea. Is it possible Uzan doesn't know about it?”

Ilanit Hadad definitely didn't know about it.

And it was possible to change the trick a bit: to switch it from an accident trick to an infiltration trick, for example.

Ilana picked up the phone but didn't dial.

It was necessary to give Uzan and his girlfriend the feeling that the police in Eilat didn't know what to do with them. To extend their arrest in Eilat and tell them that they're not being interrogated because enough evidence had accumulated against them regardless—but that they wouldn't see any detectives until after Yom Kippur. On Sunday morning they would be put in separate police cars and transported to Tel Aviv, and then the trick would be pulled on them on the way. Ilana spoke to the commander of the Southern District Investigations Unit and Avraham waited. She asked for a cigarette from him during her conversation and he lit one for himself as well. He tried to sound relaxed when he said to her, “So I don't have anything to do until after Yom Kippur, right? It's impossible to question Chava Cohen. Does that mean you're authorizing me to bring Sara in for questioning?”

But she again refused.

She said to him, “When you're capable of explaining to me what crime you suspect him of and what you want to question him about, we can talk again,” and he responded without thinking, perhaps because of the things said in his phone conversation with Garbo, “Suspicion in his wife's absence. Is that a good enough reason?”

Ilana was no longer smiling.

She said to him, “No one submitted a complaint about an absence,” and put out her cigarette, and Avraham added, “Ilana, I have a feeling he's going to harm his children.”

Did he understand what he said and how she was interpreting his words? Perhaps he did, because he didn't say anything else. They were silent for a few moments, and finally Ilana said, “I'm not letting you do this, Avi. I think we both understand what's happening here, and I won't be a party to it.”

“Be a party to what?”

“To the fact that you're inventing another missing-persons case in order to make amends for what happened to you with Ofer Sharabi. You know full well that this is what you're doing, I see it in your eyes. Maybe I shouldn't have sent you the report I wrote. Yes, you're inventing another missing-persons case and another father who's going to harm his children in order to make amends for what you may have done wrong back then. But Sara isn't Ofer's father, and his children aren't Ofer. There's no saving Ofer, you understand that, don't you?”

The ticking of the stopwatch stopped for a moment when she fell silent.

There was quiet in the room.

Was Ilana correct when she said he was aware of the connection between the two investigations? He said, “That's not what I'm doing, Ilana. I'm not trying to save Ofer Sharabi. I'm trying to save these children.”

“But save them from what? From a trip to Mom in the Philippines? Have you considered the fact that Sara didn't lie to you during questioning? Because of your prior investigation you're completely unable to comprehend that this, too, is a possibility.”

He didn't understand what she was saying. Sara lied about the place his wife supposedly traveled to.

“No, Avi, it's possible he didn't lie. It's possible she lied to him and he has no idea. You didn't consider that possibility? Maybe she told him that she was traveling to the Philippines to take care of her parents and in fact she went to a different place in order to meet her lover? That's a very possible scenario, and much more likely, no? That way you have an exit registration but you don't have an entrance registration to the Philippines. And she's a grown-up, it's her right to lie to her husband—agreed? She's even allowed to lie to her children. That's still not a violation of the law.”

He looked at her, stunned.

She was correct when she guessed that this possibility hadn't occurred to him at all.

Was Sara simply in the dark about his wife?

And why should that possibility occur to her, while he himself never gave it a thought? He recalled the private Hotmail account—
rebeccajones21
—from which Ilana sent him the report. And thought about the family picture that had lately disappeared. Had she, too, lied to her husband and children and gone to an assignation when she told them that she was at work? And was this what she wanted to reveal to him when she said she had to tell him something before he heard about it from others? This was the first time Marianka appeared in his thoughts all day, but he pushed her away. He said, “No, I hadn't thought about that, Ilana, and you could well be right. But there's the possibility you're mistaken and something else has happened.”

“What, for example?”

He had no intention of telling her everything that he thought had happened, because he knew how she'd take his words.

 

WHEN AVRAHAM LEFT HER OFFICE, AFTER
2:00 p.m., it was without Ilana's approval to question Chaim Sara. And he didn't know how to proceed. He called Marianka again and again, but she didn't answer. He ate lunch in a Persian restaurant near the market and prolonged his time there because he had no reason to hurry. Amos Uzan and Ilanit Hadad's detention had already been extended for a week by the court in Eilat, and according to the plan, they wouldn't reach Tel Aviv until Sunday. The stopwatch again ticked in his thoughts, but because of his conversation with Ilana, the pictures the ticking evoked were switched and he saw before him not Jennifer Salazar's young face but instead other faces, faces he'd hoped to avoid. Had he not succeeded in conducting the investigation with open eyes and truly seen what was happening? He felt this is exactly what he had done. Sadly, he thought that he had no one else to consult with, not even Ma'alul. Only a few hours remained before nightfall, and then it would be too late.