Murder in Jerusalem (47 page)

“What was weighing heavily on his conscience?” asked Tzilla. “Do we know yet?”

Michael looked at Shorer. “We don't yet, but perhaps we still will.”

“Did Meyuhas know?” Balilty asked. “I mean, about the cancer? Do you think he knew about the guy's condition?”

“We'll have the answer to that question very soon. If you'll excuse me for a moment—” Michael rushed to his office.

He flung the door open and startled the two men sitting across from one another at his desk, but still managed to hear Yigael ask Benny Meyuhas, “So he came to your house by surprise to pick you up?” To Michael the sergeant said, “We're trying to formulate a testimony. I thought it would help if we worked on his statement together.”

Michael sat down next to Benny Meyuhas and signaled to Yigael to keep silent. “Tell me,” he said to Meyuhas, “was Sroul a healthy man?”

“What do you mean?” Benny Meyuhas asked Michael. “Apart from the burns and all that?”

“Yes,” Michael said, “apart from his injury.”

Benny Meyuhas frowned in bewilderment and said, “Yes, you know, like the rest of us, I guess. We're not getting any younger…”

“No, no,” Michael said. “I'm asking whether he discussed his condition with you. His medical condition.”

“His condition?” Benny Meyuhas asked, confused. “I mean, he wasn't looking so good, but I thought it was because of the flight or the circumstances. I have no idea what medical condition you're referring to.”

“When I asked you why Sroul suddenly told Tirzah his big secret,” Michael said impatiently, “you explained that according to what Tirzah had told you, he'd said that you were all growing older and there was no way of knowing what the future holds and that therefore he had decided to tell her. I asked you about it, remember? It's written in the brief, and we've got you talking about it on film. I asked you why he waited so many years and suddenly—”

“Yes, you asked, but I really don't know,” Meyuhas said. “I told you that I don't know, that I don't have any explanation other than the fact that he had great faith in Tirzah, and it turns out they spent a fair amount of time alone together. You know how it happens sometimes that people suddenly tell a secret they haven't shared with anyone for years? Tirzah told me he'd said that we're all growing old. But I've already told you that, haven't I?”

“So you don't know anything about a fatal illness, any difficulties breathing?”

“No,” said Benny Meyuhas. “I'd noticed how thin he was, but it had been years since the last time I'd seen him. As for his breathing, well, he was once a very heavy smoker. But why are you asking?”

Michael looked at him in silence. “It's not important at this moment,” he said. He was just about to return to Balilty's office when the intercom rang and he hastened to lift the receiver. He heard the voice of Yaffa from forensics on the other end of the line. In a subdued voice—quite unusual for Yaffa—she said, “Listen, Michael. Are you listening? I've been trying to reach you on your beeper for over an hour.”

“What? What is it?” Michael asked, low on patience. “Have you finished?”

“Listen,” she said, clearing her throat. “I don't know how to tell you this, I've never had a thing like this happen before…” She hemmed and hawed, until finally Michael lost his patience completely and demanded that she tell him whatever it was immediately. As he listened, he felt his leg muscles go limp suddenly, and he grabbed the edge of the desk and slumped into the chair next to Benny Meyuhas, aware of the puzzled looks he was getting from Yigael and from Benny Meyuhas. “I have no idea how something like could this happen,” she said, her voice muffled. “There's no point in putting the blame on someone, the responsibility is mine in any case: it simply disappeared. There's no plastic bag. Do you remember how we put it in a small plastic bag next to the shirt? Well, we've got the shirt, but we're still searching for the bag with the strand of hair. Don't worry, though,” she said, quick to make up for it, “we haven't given up. It's just that I can't give you the answer you're waiting for yet.”

Michael hung up the phone before he could hear any more of what Yaffa had to say and raced back to Balilty's office, where he found his Special Investigations team embroiled in an argument. Balilty's voice could be heard right through the closed door as he shouted, “How am I supposed to work like this if I'm not told the complete story? In the middle of the Meyuhas interrogation I'm booted out, sent back urgently to work on Hefetz. What are you hiding from me? Our whole team is meant to be involved.”

“All in good time,” Shorer said as Michael took his seat. “It is not possible to know everything all at once, believe me.”

“You're the boss,” Balilty said, openly hostile. “You get to decide. Just don't come complaining to me that I neglected to tell you something important or that we didn't solve this business quickly enough.”

“Benny Meyuhas did not know about Sroul's lung cancer,” Michael said quietly. “He had no idea about it.”

“How about Rubin? Did he?”

“That,” Michael said, “we'll know in another couple of hours, I hope.”

“Where is Rubin anyway?” Lillian asked. “I told him to wait on the bench, and then they told me
you'd
taken him,” she said, looking at Balilty.

“He went home,” Balilty said. “He's waiting for a phone call from his friend Benny Meyuhas, who's supposed to call him when we're done with him, right?” he asked Michael.

“Yes, exactly,” Michael said.

“You let him go home?” Lillian cried out. “I thought he was…I told him to wait outside until—”

“It's all right,” Balilty said, trying to calm her down. “I told him to go home, don't worry.” He chuckled. “He may think he's alone, but he's not, not for a single minute. His telephone is—”

“Without a court order?” Eli Bachar asked, worried. “Nobody's asked for a court order. So we're doing without it?”

“Believe me,” Balilty assured him, “it'll be fine. I'm telling you, on my honor.”

“With all due respect,” Eli Bachar said, “when we bring this to the prosecuting attorney's office so it can be considered legally binding in court, your promises and your word of honor won't be worth shit.”

“Gentlemen,” Shorer cried, giving them both a look of reproach, “how many years is this business between you two going to continue? You should both be ashamed of yourselves, two grown men. Balilty, do you have a court order to tap that phone or not?”

Balilty said nothing.

“I see,” Shorer said.

“There wasn't enough time. Until I get the duty judge out of bed and all that—”

“I see,” Shorer repeated. “So it's not for use in court; whatever it is that we'll hear over the phone will be for our use only, which is still something. How long will it take you to get a court order?”

“I've got someone already on the way to the duty judge,” Balilty said, “and he should be back any minute now, I promise. I didn't want to go there myself, I would have missed this meeting. And I didn't want to miss this meeting because I thought we'd finally get to hear what it was Tirzah came back from America with, what it was she learned there.”

“Not now, Danny,” Shorer said, shutting him up. “That's not material for now.”

“Anyway,” Balilty said, “I told Rubin to phone here at eight this morning and that we'll be able to tell him then what's happening with Benny Meyuhas, so that then he can, like, talk to him.”

“People,” Michael said to the room, “we've got two hours until eight o'clock rolls around. You can take a short rest, after that we've got a production that needs—” He looked at Shorer and fell silent.

“Needs what?” Tzilla asked. “I've got to have the details.”

“You'll get them soon enough,” Shorer reassured her. Turning to Michael, he asked, “Where do you want to do it?”

“At Israel Television, I think,” Michael said, examining the toothpick he had removed from his shirt pocket.

“In Rubin's office?” Shorer asked.

“No,” Michael answered after careful consideration. “In the String Building, near the scene of the first murder.”

“Well, Monsieur Poirot, this is genuine Agatha Christie, isn't it?” Balilty muttered. “That's where you think we'll have the fatal meeting that'll get him to talk?”

“It's worth trying,” Eli Bachar said. “And it'll give us the chance to—”

Shorer flashed a concerned look at Michael.

“So, you need all of us there?” Nina asked. Michael glanced at Shorer, placed a hand on his arm, and said, “We'll know that in a little while. In the meantime, you're all on standby. Everyone.”

“Hey, look, it's already getting light outside,” Nina exclaimed. “And it seems the rain has cleared up, too.”

In place of a response, there was a knock at the door. In the doorway stood Elmaliah the cameraman. Bleary-eyed, he asked when they would finish up with him; behind him a curl of smoke rose in the air, and he made way for Hefetz to enter the room. “May I have a word with you?” Hefetz asked Michael. “I've got to talk to you about something.” Looking at the assembled team, he fell silent.

Michael stepped outside and motioned to Hefetz to follow him to his office at the end of the hallway. He removed a pile of cardboard files from one of the chairs and, in silence, offered Hefetz a seat. When he sat down, Michael felt for the first time just how very tired he was. He could not decide, however, whether it was the hair that had disappeared from the forensics lab—about which he had told no one, not even Shorer—that had broken his spirit, or whether it was this interminable contact with life and death for days on end without sleep that had caused his limbs to feel so very weak. Or maybe it was having given up smoking, that strange mourning he felt inside: true mourning. What was he mourning, anyway? That faithful convoy of cigarettes that had suddenly been stopped short after so many years? Or was it that multitude of times and people and loves and essential life moments that were hanging from that priceless chain of cigarettes?

Quitting smoking—which he was supposed to regard as the “beginning of a healthy life”—seemed merely to be the end of many lives and the start of something detached, severed, and there was no way of knowing what new spark would come along to carry it forward. He wondered how he could ever make anyone understand how those little creatures made from paper, tobacco, and a flame had become the pillar of fire that had led him on his long journey through the wilderness. He was stunned by this train of thought; perhaps even this tendency to exaggeration stemmed from the extreme fatigue brought on by giving up smoking.

“Is it okay if I smoke in here?” Hefetz asked as he looked at the plume of smoke rising from the cigarette in his hand. “I'd actually given it up, but yesterday I couldn't take it anymore. This is my first in more than three years,” he said, taking a heavy drag. “They tell you it's not good for your health, but in the end you die of something anyway, right? If not a heart attack, then somebody comes along and kills you.”

“How can I help you?” Michael asked, snapping the toothpick between his fingers into two.

“I don't know what to do about Meyuhas,” Hefetz said. “I don't know what to tell people, how to deal with it on the news, whether or not to announce that he's been detained on suspicion of murder. And the worst of it is…” He fell silent and stared at the butt of his cigarette.

“The worst of it?” Michael asked after a long moment of silence.

“The worst of it is what people are saying…. Balilty told me I should announce, on the same morning that Benny Meyuhas has been picked up, that his production of
Iddo and Eynam
will continue as though nothing's changed. But how can I say such a thing after what's happened? The guy is a suspect for the murders of two, no three, people, and I—”

“The matter necessitates some discretion,” Michael warned him. “If you can promise to keep a secret.”

“Of course. I mean, I don't have to give anybody a full report,” Hefetz said, inflating his chest. “I can…even the director general doesn't need to know yet.”

“I'm talking very seriously about complete secrecy,” Michael warned him again.

“Come on,” Hefetz said, offended, “what do you think? That I'm going to run around shooting off at the mouth? You think I can't be trusted? You think I was just handed the position of director of Israel Television because there was nobody else who could do it after Zadik?”

“The truth is, we are not holding Benny Meyuhas as a suspect for murder,” Michael declared. “He's not a murderer, and he's not an accomplice to murder; in fact, he's about to help us clear up the whole matter. But we have to pretend that he is still a suspect, so therefore I am asking for your cooperation.” Michael looked into Hefetz's frightened eyes, which were darting around the room.

“So what do I need to do?” Hefetz asked as he stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of one of the cowboy boots he was wearing.

“You've got to act as though you yourself don't understand, as if he's a suspect but temporarily free. You should treat him for the time being with compassion, like someone quite ill, if you understand what I'm getting at. Let's say, you shouldn't express astonishment if he returns to work on his production, and you should probably let people know he's coming back to work on
Iddo and Eynam
.”

“Where?” Hefetz said, alarmed. “What people should I tell?”

“Nobody special,” Michael advised him. “Just act normal. At the morning meeting, when you go over your daily schedule, you should say something noncommittal about his being a suspect but out on bail, or something like that. Give people the feeling that for the time being, to make life easier for him, you've decided to let him continue with his life's work. Is that clear?”