An Accidental Murder: An Avram Cohen Mystery (24 page)

“A few questions. That’s all I want,” Cohen had said. “You can sit in.”

“He’ll only confirm what you already know. He was not in Jerusalem,” said the general.

“Let him tell me. I need it for the record.” The big brother thought for a moment and then conceded Cohen some time with Lerner.

A tall slender man with a thick scar from the corner of his mouth to just below his left ear, missing the last joint of his middle finger on his left hand, and with eyes not dissimilar to Cohen’s—so light as to be silver-gray, set into heavy brows and surrounded by a complex of crow’s feet—Lerner had not denied having the affair with Masha.

Sticking to his alibi, he mocked Yevet Karlinsky, the husband, as a drunk, a loser, “and as I’m sure you’ll decide, a murderer.” He had spoken with the self-confidence of an absolute cynic unsurprised by the murder of what he called in a Hebrew much poorer than his wife’s, “my part-time woman.” He had a witness to his alibi, he pointed out, “on the film in my camera.” A Bedouin man, on a camel. “Very authentic,” the new immigrant said smugly.

And with that, the big brother cut short the interview, and Lerner was whisked out of Cohen’s life.

The film indeed showed a Bedouin on a camel, profiled against the seamless blue of sea and sky at the lowest spot on earth. Lerner was reduced to a single-line mention as having an alibi, in the summation report that the CID chief eventually provided the state prosecutor for the trial of Yevet Karlinsky, for the murder of his wife, Masha. Yevet had claimed innocence all along, until the third time Cohen won a remand order from a magistrate judge for the suspect to be held without bail for fifteen more days of investigation. But soon afterward, and then throughout the trial, Yevet reverted to his claims of innocence. Sentenced to life, he would get out after twelve years with good behavior, only to be killed by a speeding taxi a few weeks later.

All this Cohen knew. It all rushed through his mind in a sweep of memory when Sonia showed him the video of a boss of bosses grimacing with pleasure as her head bobbed up and down, up and down, in the lap of the man she called Vlad Zagorsky, the man Cohen know as Lev Lerner.

It was improbable, impossible, crazy, Cohen thought. But he listened to her until nearly four in the morning, as she answered all his questions.

She knew nothing about any Lerner. But of Zagorksy she knew much, starting with the fact he called her one of his favorites, making use of her special talents, as he called them she said, on special occasions. For his business associates, she called them. Proudly, she declared it granted her some immunity from the fear she made clear he could easily impose. “And with this,” she added, pulling the pile of cash toward her on the bed, “I can make some changes in my life.” Privately, Cohen doubted it, but he said nothing, not wanting to dam any information she had to offer.

“He owns banks,” she said bluntly at first, as if that was enough.

“Where?” Cohen asked.

“Russia,” she said, as if it was obvious. “And Cyprus.

This I know. He made me an account. And he owns land.

Much land. Buildings.”

“Where?”

“Europe.”

“Where?” Cohen pressed.

“Germany.”

“Here?”

She shrugged, a gesture that implied that all she had implied earlier about being her own boss was only partly true.

“Brothels?” he asked.

“It is a business,” she said, and suddenly turned on Cohen, rejecting what he assumed was his begrudging moral judgment. “It is work,” she said, “like any other.”

“Drugs?”

She pursed her lips but remained silent, confirming what he wanted to know, but not daring to say it aloud.

“He has a son,” she suddenly added, like an afterthought.

“He brought the boy to me in the summer.”

Cohen waited for her to fill in the pause she left in her sentence.

“There was nothing to teach that boy. Girls, boys. He knew everything. He could teach me. What’s happening to the kids nowadays?” she asked, almost making him laugh.

But most important, he learned, important enough to pay her another ten thousand, was that Vladimir Zagorksy had been in Israel for the last three weeks.

Could he be certain that Sonia’s Zagorsky was his Lerner?

The mere question made him ask himself, for the first time in years, if Karlinksy, the cuckolded husband, had indeed been as innocent as he had claimed, and Zagorksy or Lerner, whatever his name, the guilty one.

Cohen thought about it hard coming out of the Exotica just before dawn. It was not a common name, even in Russia.

But unable to think of a reason why Lerner would want him dead or injured, Cohen scratched at his head, mumbling to himself in frustration as he drove out of Tel Aviv, until finally, on the highway just past the airport, he pulled the car over. While the blue light that precedes dawn began to rise in the east over the Judean mountains, he used the cellular phone.

“What?” Shmulik’s gruff voice demanded before the end of the second ring.

Cohen laughed.

“Avram? That you?” Shmulik asked. “What are you laughing about?” he asked angrily.

“You. Still getting up before dawn. ‘?’ Still answering the phone the same way. ‘?’ ” he repeated, imitating his old friend, colleague, and occasional nemesis, formerly—to the extent that is ever possible in an intelligence service—of the Shabak. “Old habits hard to shake,” Cohen kidded.

Like Cohen, Shmulik was no longer in his force, leaving a few years after Cohen, who still didn’t know why Shmulik had suddenly dropped out of the race to becoming the head of the service. Only once did Cohen ask, and since Cohen, despite everything, had officially only been a policeman and not a direct employee of the secret service, Shmulik only gave him a glance that said “I can’t tell you, so don’t make it difficult on both of us by asking.” Cohen didn’t. And now he couldn’t be sure that Shmulik would be absolutely honest. But they had worked together long enough for Cohen to be able to tell when Shmulik was lying—or hiding something.

Shmulik sighed. “What do you want?”

“It’s not for the phone. I’ll be outside your house in twenty minutes,” Cohen said.

They had worked together as counterparts, sometimes in competing roles, often interchangeable, sharing case files, sometimes sources, and with the clear legal distinction that when issues came to court, it was the police, not the secret service, which brings the arrest. Secret servicemen testified as witnesses, not as arresting officers. Cohen hated to bring Shabakniks into court unless it was absolutely necessary. Not because the judges would see through the lies and wink, but because the judges preferred to believe that while in the name of security there had to be a certain leeway in case of a ticking bomb somewhere, they also wanted to believe that nobody would lie to them in the name of security. And no matter how much Cohen wanted to put the wrongdoers away, he didn’t want it done with lies. Trickery was a lot more effective than force in any investigation, he taught his juniors.

He waited for a semitrailer speeding in the left lane to pass before he slipped the car into gear and got back on the road. A few minutes later he passed the truck. And fifteen minutes after he called Shmulik, he was at the Kastel peak, where he got off the highway and slipped into the little village of Motza, the sun now in full bloom over the forest covered mountainside.

Shmulik and his wife, Dvora, had been building their house for years. First it was to change the two-room house into three rooms, to accommodate a first-born. Then, when the couple’s second pregnancy turned into twins, one boy and one girl, they eventually added two more rooms. But even after the kids began leaving home, Shmulik and Dvora kept improving the house, up to and including a whole second house built on the foundations of a one-cow stable that had come with the property.

Cohen turned into the tiny street and wasn’t surprised to see Shmulik waiting for him in the quiet street.

Cohen rolled down the passenger door window. Shmulik leaned in. “What couldn’t you ask me on the phone?” asked the former Shabak officer.

“Zagorsky. Vladimir Zagorksy,” Cohen said, not so much impatient as efficient in his tone. He left the engine running. “Did I know him as Lev Lerner?

Shmulik was silent for a second too long.

“Don’t tell me stories,” Cohen protested.

“You weren’t supposed to know then, why should you know now?”

“Why would he have something against me?” Cohen asked.

“I don’t know.” “What do you know?” Cohen demanded.

“Not very much,” Shmulik admitted. “It just happened.

His name came up for something the big brothers needed.” It was a phrase used by the police and Shabak to refer to the Mossad. “I don’t know what.” “But you can find out,” said Cohen.

“To hell with you, Avram. I’m retired. I’m out. And I’m not like you. I don’t regret it.”

“There’s a man named Vladimir Zagorksy,” Cohen repeated sternly, turning off the car engine. “Deeply involved in the Russian Mafia. He might be connected to Nissim Levy’s murder. I think he tried to kill me in Frankfurt. I need to know for certain. Is he Lerner?”

“What makes you think so?”

“I saw a picture. Older, but him. You know me. I remember these things. Is he the same? Is he with them?” Cohen asked, meaning the Mossad.

Shmulik sighed, then bowed his head. “I’ll see what I can find out,” he promised. He noticed the cellular phone on Cohen’s car seat, and smiled. “You, too,” he laughed.

“What’s your number?” Cohen told him. “Fast, Shmulik. Fast. Today. This morning. Call me.” Shmulik’s Great Dane came bouncing out through the front gate, slapping his front paws on the side of Cohen’s car to see what was so interesting to his master. The dog recognized Cohen and began howling with happiness. Shmulik grabbed the beast by the collar and pulled it off the car, letting Cohen drive away.

It was another fifteen minutes into Jerusalem, just ahead of the morning rush-hour traffic from the coastal plain trying to get into the capital through the three lanes at the entrance to the city. On the way, the Army Radio morning news magazine reported that the police would ask a magistrate’s court that morning for a fifteen-day remand of Itzik Alper, Kobi’s little brother, a prime suspect in the murder of Nissim Levy.

Again, Cohen couldn’t help but wonder if they were right and he was wrong. He never expected to find the answer on his doorstep, nor that it would bring tears to his eyes.

Cohen waited for them all to leave—the bomb squad, the detectives (including a new CID commander who had come up from Tel Aviv only three months earlier), and the reporters—before he buried Suspect in the back of his garden.

The tears came to his eyes when he found the cat. As he buried it, he finally let a few fall.

The cat had been with him nearly fifteen years, and though never pampered was still healthy; old enough to be wise enough not to take every fleeting bird through the garden as a personal challenge, clever enough to manage on his own when Cohen was out of town, clean enough for Cohen to tolerate as a roommate. Not a dog that would have raised a ruckus to scare away an intruder, therefore justifying in the killer’s mind the murder, the cat was killed out of spite, the work of someone who wanted to hurt Cohen’s feelings before the bomb inside would kill him.

Whoever it was got in through the same window that the cat ordinarily used when Cohen was away, an acrobatic climb but one that even Cohen, heavy and never nimble, had on occasion made when forgetting his keys on his desk at the office after too long a week of on-the-job sleeplessness.

The cat wasn’t killed on the floor mat before the front door. It was put there. Luckily. For whoever did it left a partial print made of Suspect’s blood, which had drained from the lone bullet’s exit wound, a massive tear of the fur and skin and skull and brain of the animal.

His sigh made his lungs echo with a rattle of breathless pain. Inside, the phone kept ringing. The inspector general himself had called while the District CID commander was still there, overseeing his dozen men and women on the case, wanting a firsthand look at the famous Avram Cohen, the High Priest gone to hermitage who everyone still said was the best boss to ever hold the office.

Cohen was now convinced, though exactly of what, he couldn’t be sure. The bomb—not unlike the one in Frankfurt —was professional. But there was nothing professional about killing the cat. That was personal. And he knew he had nothing personal with any of the Russians— and that the Alper brothers were not in any position to arrange a bombing attempt on anyone, let alone him.

The IG did help Cohen with the press, which clamored for a press conference, if not a series of interviews.

Nobody outside of the IG, the new CID commander, and one old investigator Cohen knew well, who showed up on the scene and could tell Cohen was disturbed by something more than the bomb he found under his desk, knew about what had happened to the cat. The National Police spokesman’s office issued a statement that the investigation was being taken very seriously. Part of his statement included a quote that Cohen formulated with the spokesman’s help: “Retired Deputy Commander Avram Cohen is helping the police in any way they see fit, with their inquiries. Due to the sensitive nature of the investigation, no interviews of any kind will be given until the matter is resolved.”

It didn’t drive all the reporters away. But using the excuse of a neighborhood canvas, the police did manage to finally push the reporters off the street outside Cohen’s house, to the end of it, where by noon only one remained, and by two o’clock he was also gone.

Finally alone, he put on a kettle, took a hot shower, and gave a longing look at the bed. But instead, he changed into clean clothes and stirred at the thick mud coffee, sitting at his desk, thinking. Finally, he stopped stirring and while the coffee powder settled at the bottom of the tall glass, he turned on the computer, took a clean sheet of paper for notes, and like a card player testing a deck, he riffled the little stack of yellow notebooks he had filled during the two months of searching through the archives.