The Kabbalist (16 page)

"This is an
ordinary safe in which we keep some special books,” said the old man calmly, “but
they are not that valuable to interest a burglar.”

“Can you open it for
us, please? I mean, only if you have no problem showing us the contents. I
would not like to invade your privacy.”

“I appreciate it,” said
the Abbot, “but we have nothing to hide.” He walked confidently to the safe and
handled the dial. The lock clicked, and he opened it. There were two books
inside.

“May I ask what these
books are?”

“Of course,” Father
Rafael extended a trembling hand, reached for one of the books and handed it to
Luria. Luria examined the cover. The title of the book was ‘
L'histoire d'une
âme’
; the author’s name read
‘Thérèse of Lisieux’
.

“The story of a soul,” explained Father Rafael. “This is the autobiography
of the saint
Thérèse of Lisieux. Thérèse was a Carmelite nun, who died
from tuberculosis in 1897, aged twenty four, and was later recognized as a
saint. The two books are from the original edition, and that is why we keep
them in the safe. I do not expect them to be of much material value beyond
their spiritual one.”

“This is very
interesting,” said Luria. “And what is the other book?”

Father Rafael retrieved
the second book. “
Thérèse of Lisieux’s collection of letters.”

Luria took the book and
gazed at it for a few seconds. Danny imagined he saw something in his chief’s
face. Luria was obviously puzzled. “Thank you,” he said after a while, and
returned the book to the old man. “Well, I guess that’s it. We are done now. I
thank you for your cooperation.”

Father Rafael put the
books back and closed the safe door. The two monks bowed politely and turned to
go. Before leaving, Father Rafael exchanged a few words with Brother Pedro, who
stayed on watch.

Luria now turned to the
forensic man who was busy packing. “Just a moment; before you leave, please
check the safe for fingerprints.”

Danny and the
technician looked at him incredulously. “I have already done that,” said the
technician at last.

“And I am asking you to
do it again,” insisted Luria. “Is there a problem?”

“No, of course not.”
The technician looked at Danny and shrugged. He then unpacked his suitcase and
started working again.

A young man entered the
library, his eyes searching around. When he saw Danny, he headed towards the
two detectives. “This is Leon, the technician who went to get hold of the
video,” explained Danny when the man came closer. “What’s up, Leon?”

“The murderer arrived
at the scene at 01:22 am.”

“So we have his
picture?”

Leon shook his head.
“Unfortunately not. At 01:22, somebody, presumably the murderer, covered the
lenses of the camera at the back. I checked the camera location. It is very
accessible and he just threw an old rag over it, without getting himself in
view.”

“Did you send forensics
over there?” asked Danny. Leon nodded.

“OK, then. Thank you.”

“Anyway, I got the
material,” said Leon. “Will there be anything else?”

“No. That will be all.”
Danny looked disappointed. “We’ll go through it together at the station.”

Ten minutes later,
Danny and Luria were almost alone. All crew members have already left or were
on their way out. Only the ever-watching Brother Pedro remained vigilant in the
corner of the library. Luria signaled to Danny. “Come with me,” he said briskly.
“I want to show you something.”

They walked to the far
end of the library, where Luria pointed at one of the shelves. “Do you see what
I see?”

Danny did not notice
anything unusual. “What am I supposed to see?”

“When I scanned the
room before, I was looking for possible signs indicating that books had been recently
removed from the shelves. Eventually, I focused on the volumes that turned out
to be hidden in the safe, but this shelf here had also attracted my attention.
Usually, the books in this library are tightly packed together. Note that the
books here are not as firmly pressed as in other places. I believe that a book
or two have been removed from here.”

From his expression, it
was obvious that Danny wasn’t so sure about it. Luria approached the shelf,
scanning with his flashlight the backs of the books standing on it. At last, he
found what he was looking for. “Look at the name of this book here.”

Danny examined the
cover. “Hey, this is another copy of one of the books in the safe –
‘
Thérèse
of Lisieux’s collection of letters’
."

“You are
almost
right,” said Luria. “I watched the book Father Rafael retrieved from the safe
very carefully. It was volume 2 of
’
Thérèse of Lisieux’s collection
of letters’
. This here is volume 1.”

“Meaning what?” Danny
was not sure he got the point.

“Meaning that the books
we saw in the safe had been probably snatched at random from this shelf and put
there hurriedly. They are no more special than the other books which still
remain on the shelf.”

“Put in the safe by
whom?”

“By Father Rafael, of course.”

“And why would he do
that?”

“You still don’t get
it,” Luria smiled. “Here is what I think happened. A valuable object has been stolen
from this place tonight; probably a book or a document. Father Fernando took it
out of the safe and sat down at the table to browse it. He was attacked and the
document was taken. When Father Rafael got here, he realized what had happened.
He immediately rushed to the safe and found it empty. For reasons yet unknown
to us, he did not want this to be found out. Fearing that nosy police
investigators may find the safe, he removed at random two books from one of the
farthest shelves and stuck them there. He assumed that if the safe were
discovered and found empty, inconvenient questions might be asked. He figured
out it would be much simpler if the safe contained some innocent material
rather than a suspicious void.”

Danny shook his head in
wonder. “It sounds simple when you put it this way,” he said. “And the reason
you asked for an additional forensic check of the safe, was to isolate Father
Rafael’s fingerprints, which he had left there while opening the door for us.
You want to compare those with the fingerprints made before that, to establish
your theory that he had messed with the safe before we got here. This is
brilliant, if I may say so, sir.”

Luria nodded. “And if
this theory is validated,” he said, “we can conclude that something valuable
was indeed stolen from here tonight and that Father Rafael is covering up for
it, going as far as to interfere with a police investigation.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I haven’t a clue,”
answered Luria, “but he must have had a damned good reason.”

L
uria was bent over a
stack of forms when Danny burst in almost violently, waving a document consisting
of a few pages. “Sir, hats off to you!” he called. “You were right!”

“Right about what?” Luria
raised his eyes from the papers on his desk and stared at the excited detective.
“What has come over you? What happened?”

Danny kept waving the
document at him. “The forensic report!”

“Well, what does it
say?”

“It is exactly like you
said. We have Father Rafael’s fingerprints on the safe,
before
he opened
it to show us the books. We know that these are his fingerprints because, as
you insisted, we also sampled the safe after he had opened it for us. His first
set of fingerprints is all over the fingerprints of the dead Father Fernando
Diaz. It is obvious that he opened the safe
after
Father Fernando had
already been dead. His fingerprints are also clearly visible on at least four
of the five volumes that were standing before the safe!”

Luria smiled, unable to
hide his satisfaction. “So our little guess worked out.”

“
Our
Guess?”
Danny was excited. “You played it like Sherlock Holmes, I am telling you, sir!”

“Will you please calm
down?” Luria tried to get his subordinate down to earth. “Let me remind you
that this does not solve the case. Our work is just beginning, and I am in
desperate need of a cool-headed detective.”

“Yes, sir.” Danny
blushed.

“And let us stop this
‘sir’ thing. We have had enough of it for one morning.” Luria did not like to
emphasize hierarchy in his unit.

“Yes, sir,” replied
Danny automatically and immediately blushed even more. They looked at each
other and started laughing.

“There is more,” added
Danny after they had both calmed down. “We have a first clue of the murderer.”

“I am listening.”

“This morning, Control
had a call from Omer Friedman, a young mechanical engineer. In the night
between Sunday and Monday, Friedman returned with his girlfriend from a pub
downtown and around 2 AM they were traveling up Stella Maris road. On the ridge
line, right next to the monastery, the road turns sharply to the left; do you
know the place?”

Luria nodded. He knew
it well enough. Every inhabitant of Haifa did.

“Well, as they were
completing the turn, a Mazda-3 shot out wildly from the parking lot on the right-hand
side, just opposite the Monastery. It entered the lane in front of them,
causing Friedman to press down on his brakes to avoid colliding into it. The
unnerved Friedman followed that car for a short while toward Central Carmel and
then lost it. He managed to identify the number of the speeding vehicle and
dictate it to his girlfriend, who saved it on her mobile phone. He did not
really know what to do with it. Actually, when he woke up in the morning, he
decided to put the whole matter to rest. Then, having heard about the murder in
the news, he realized that he might be in possession of valuable information
and called Control.”

“Excellent,” said
Luria. “Though I bet it was a stolen vehicle. Have you checked?”

“Yes,” replied Danny, “and
you are right. It
was
a stolen vehicle. It was reported yesterday
morning in the police station downtown, by one Moshe Rotem of Einstein Street.”

“Have you talked to
him?”

“I was actually on my
way.”

“He is probably an innocent
citizen, whose car has been stolen.”

“I think so too, but I
guess we should interview him anyway.”

“Sure. Just don’t
expect it to lead us anywhere,” remarked Luria. “Please take the new guy, Oren,
with you. He will be under your supervision and responsibility. I want him to
get some feel of the job.”

“No problem,” said
Danny.

“Good. Report if you find
something. I am going to see Arnon to discuss this case. We’ll talk when you
are back.”

*    *    *

Chief Superintendent Ehud Arnon,
deputy chief of Haifa Police, sat in his chair behind a big desk. He was an
imposing man in his late thirties and a rising star in the police force. Arnon
was the driving force behind the significant changes the Haifa Station had been
undergoing for the past three years, and Luria was his first new recruit. Their
relationship was based on mutual respect, both personal and professional, and
on some measure of genuine friendship. Arnon appreciated the qualities Luria
had brought with him and the professionalism and drive of the unit he had
created from scratch, and Luria saw in Arnon an excellent commander, a worthy
man, and a star to cling to on his way to the top.

“How are you doing,
Luria?” Arnon rose to welcome him. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No, Thanks,” said Luria.
“I have already had my morning coffee.”

Arnon pointed to the
chair on the other side of his desk and they both sat down. “Any news in the
Stella Maris case?”

“We may have a lead
regarding the car the murderer used. Somebody saw a vehicle speeding away from
the scene at a matching time and wrote down the license number. It’s a stolen
vehicle, of course. We are checking.”

“Good,” said Arnon. “Please
keep me updated on all developments, and I’ll want a daily brief.”

Luria nodded. “Sure.
Now, yesterday we started discussing the Special Investigation Team. We need to
get it going.”

Arnon looked at him
gravely. “I gave it some thought. The SIT is you. We’ll not need more than that
for now.”

Luria raised an
eyebrow. “Sorry, I am not sure I understand.”

“You heard me.”

“What does it mean?”
Luria was genuinely perplexed.

“It means that I want a
very small team with an even smaller exposure and absolutely no leaks.”

“At this moment, the
only ones involved are Danny and me.”

“Who is Danny?” Arnon sounded
concerned.

“Inspector Danny Raviv,
one of the men I brought on board from the commando. He has been with us for eighteen
months now. He was on duty that night and was called to the scene.”

“Can we count on him?”

“Of course,” Luria
sounded a bit offended. “I choose my men very carefully.”

“Sure, sure,” Arnon was
quick to respond. “Who else is involved? Even marginally.”

“A young detective
named Oren Bar that I asked Danny to train.”

“Get rid of both. Just
get them off the case. I want you alone on this. Also, try to minimize the
number of technicians and other personnel involved. I want to know the details,
I want to hear of any glimmer of a clue and of every development, and I want to
know ahead of any critical moves you are planning. Is that clear?”

Luria was puzzled. “You
expect me to handle this case alone?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t. This is a
serious investigation, sir. And, with all due respect, this is a job for a
team. I need an assistant at the very least. I do not see how I can manage this
on my own, let alone other ongoing investigations and a unit to run.”

“Leave everything else.
Delegate authority to your deputy; what’s his name?”

“Uri.”

“Nominate Uri to run
your detectives for the time being.”

Luria was starting to
heat up. “It does not work this way. What is going on here, sir?”

“This is a super
sensitive case. This morning, the Station Chief was summoned to an urgent
meeting at the Minister’s office along with the Chief of Police. He came back
scared to death and immediately called me. It seems the Catholic Church is in
the picture, and this whole thing is a political hot potato.”

“The Catholic Church?”

“The Foreign Minister
has received messages from the Vatican,” said Arnon. “Maybe
you
can tell
me what is going on here. What’s eating them?”

“I am not sure,” said
Luria. “I already told you yesterday that I believed something had been stolen from
there. It must have been of great value to them, but for some reason they are
doing their best to hide it. Today, by the way, I received hard data to
corroborate my suspicions. Father Rafael was actively interfering with police
work and tampering with evidence.”

“And had I not brought
this up, you wouldn’t have told me?” Luria identified irritation in his chief’s
voice.

“The forensic report
came in minutes ago, just before I entered your office.” He could see that Arnon
did not like this one bit. “The fingerprints on the safe prove beyond doubt
that Father Rafael had tampered with the safe after Diaz, and before we got
there.”

“You mean to tell me
you took fingerprints from Father Rafael?” Arnon looked stunned. “Are you out
of your mind, Luria? Do you want to mess us up with the Church? Do you want the
Minister pissed off?”

Luria explained.

“Luria, you smartass,”
Arnon still sounded agitated but Luria could identify appreciation in the eyes
of his chief. “You are always walking on the brink. You are a bright guy; I’ll
grant you that, but one of these days you are going to screw up things for me
big time. I have not heard this, and I know nothing about it.”

“Sure, sir.”

“So what are they
hiding?”

“I don’t know,” said
Luria. “And if I read the situation correctly, we may well never know.”

“What makes you say
that?”

“Well… The Vatican
calls the Minister and next thing you are summoned to an urgent meeting to have
the sensitivity of the situation explained. You are told that the Church wants
a
very
low profile and that if possible they would prefer to have this
incident just fade away. The people in the monastery are obviously
uncooperative and do not want us to know the truth. It seems to me that no one
really wants anybody to know anything about this case.”

Luria saw a cloud
descending on his chief’s face, but he pressed on. “And what happens when we
catch the murderer? Then we might inadvertently stumble upon the truth and
understand what this is really all about. Where does this put the Church, which
clearly wants the whole affair disappearing into thin air? What will they do
then? What will
you
do?”

Superintendent Arnon
let out an involuntary groan. “Sometimes I think you are too smart for your
job,” he said. “Maybe even too smart for your own good. But perhaps it is
better this way, as we can now talk freely.”

He leaned back in his
chair and stretched his legs. Luria waited for him to speak.

“The Church is in a
catch,” explained Arnon. “Like you have correctly diagnosed, they would like to
have their mysterious loss returned. On the other hand, they would not admit they
had lost anything. They would like it back, yet are afraid of the exposure if
we do catch the murderer. I believe they would rather have us forget the whole matter,
but, of course, they know we cannot just ignore a murder case.”

“Do you know what has been
stolen?” asked Luria.

“I don’t and I don’t
want to know. Nobody wants to know. Even the Foreign Minister and the Public Security
Minister don’t want to know. They only want to wake up tomorrow morning and
have this whole messy affair sorted out somehow.”

“And how will this
miracle be achieved?”

Arnon popped up the back
of his chair and leaned forward on his desk, his head almost touching Luria’s.
“Well, if you have not figured this out so far, maybe you are not
that
smart, after all,” he said. “Today it was brought to my attention by some
senior powers, that this is
my
problem.” His voice was now almost
menacing. “And from this moment on, Superintendent Yossi Luria, it has
officially become
your
bloody problem too.” He straightened up and then
leaned back again in his chair, crossed his hands, squinted and looked at Luria,
who sat silently, not knowing what to say. “And what do you have to say now, my
smartass friend and subordinate?”

*    *    *

Luria spent the next two
hours going over the open cases his unit was handling, and delegating authority
to Uri, his deputy. By the time he was finished, it was past noon. He
considered going out for a falafel and call it lunch, but before he could get
out of his chair, Danny came charging in like a bull, and slumped in the chair
opposite his desk.

“You can come in now,” said
Luria, his sarcasm lost on Danny.

“The man from whom the
Mazda has been stolen is clean,” Danny reported. “And the stolen vehicle was
located a few hours ago.”

“Where?”

“It was found on Keller
Street in Central Carmel. It’s been standing there since yesterday morning. Forensics
are already working on it. First impression is that the car thief was a pro.
They are still looking for fingerprints or anything to identify the driver.”

“I request that from
now on I get information in real time,” said Luria. Danny sensed his boss’s
annoyance and nodded.

“How was Oren?”

Danny shrugged. “OK, I
guess. He did not help much, but at least he was not a pain.”

“Does he know the whole
story? Murder, cover-up and all?”

“No more than he would have
found out from the news. I did not think this was necessary. I just told him
this was about a stolen car which was used in a robbery. Should I have told him
more?”

“No, no, you did fine.
I want a low profile on this. Sending him with you was a mistake in the first place.
It is you and me and no word to anybody else.”

“What about the SIT?”

“As I said, this is
going to be you and me.”

“No SIT?” Danny was
surprised. “This is quite unusual for such a case, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” said Luria, “but
as of this minute, you are not talking to anybody except me about this case,
and you are not moving or doing anything without coordinating with me first. Is
this clear?”