The Bar Mitzvah Murder (11 page)

“I don't have enough, Jack. About all I know is that someone made a very intricate plan to kidnap and kill Gabe Gross. I don't even know if they originally planned to kill him or just get that key from him and the combination to the safe.”

“You may never know that.”

“True. I don't know what I could tell Joseph that would give her enough to come up with something. I think the answers are in the States, somewhere in Gabe's background, as you suggested, or in Marnie's life.”

“So you've given up on his relatives?”

“I only interviewed a few and I got nothing from them. Including Hal and Mel. Mel says most of them have left for home by now. What am I missing?”

I must have sounded rather forlorn, because Jack gave me a grin and patted my back. “You're missing the key. We all are.”

“What are the Israeli police looking into?”

“The usual things—drugs, black-market deals, covert shipment of military equipment. His name doesn't come up anywhere.”

“Has anyone tried to get a copy of his will?” I asked.

“They've asked. I'll check tomorrow and see if it's come yet.”

“Maybe that'll shed some light,” I said.

16

While I was driving Jack to the police station the next morning, I asked him if he knew where Gabe's body had been found.

“It was on a street,” he said, “in an Arab district. Someone went outside and found it and called the police.”

“Is there a house address?”

“You want to go there.” He didn't sound happy.

“I really should. After we leave, anything I've missed I've missed forever.”

“Look, I'll find where the place is, but I don't want you going there by yourself. Just a precaution.”

“Maybe I can get Hal to come with me.”

“I hope he doesn't sue me when he sees where you're taking him.”

“I'll protect him. After all, he's my friend's husband.”

Jack got out of the car and gave me a kiss. I drove back to the hotel and waited for his call. I really wanted to do something and there didn't seem much to do at this end, unless the location of the body led me somewhere productive. About fifteen minutes after I got back to the room, Jack called with the address. He cautioned me firmly and I promised not to be stupid. The truth was, I was too scared to be stupid. There's something about being in a foreign country that makes everything worthy of suspicion.

“What did the police learn from the canvass?” I asked.

“Nada. This is a group that doesn't like the police.”

“Good,” I said brightly. “Maybe they'll like a woman who isn't police.”

Jack had said the area was called Silwan and it was located below the Dung Gate, to which I made an appropriate comment. But that's what that gate to the Old City is called. The neighborhood had once been part of Jordan, and the people living and working there were Arabs. It was definitely accessible by car.

I found the street on the map, then picked up the phone and called Mel's number.

No one answered and I decided, considering the time, that they were probably at breakfast. If I hurried, I could get to them before they left the hotel.

I was lucky. When I got to the house phone, they had just come back to their room. I talked to Mel, then to Hal, then to Mel again. I could tell Mel was dying to come with me and Hal didn't want her to. We finally decided to drive over in two cars, with Mel sitting next to me to navigate and Hal and the kids following. When we were done, they could take off and I could go my own way.

I sat down in the lobby to wait and suddenly the little round man of yesterday morning appeared.

“Good morning,” he said pleasantly. “You are still in Jerusalem.”

“Yes, we're staying several more days.”

“But you are not at the hotel you told me you were staying at.”

My heartbeat signaled panic. He had checked up on me. “I beg your pardon?”

“I went to the American Colony to talk to you. You are not registered.”

“Mr. Kaplan— What is this about? Why did you go to my hotel?”

“I thought perhaps we could continue our conversation. There is no one named Bennett registered at the hotel.”

“I'm registered under my husband's name,” I said, feeling a little better. “I'm sorry; I didn't think you were going to look for me.”

“I have things to tell you.”

Something about him began to annoy me, but I didn't want to give up a source. “I would like to hear your information,” I said, hoping he had something I didn't already know.

He didn't look very happy. “If you really want to know how Gabriel Gross died, you should set aside some time so we can talk.”

I looked beyond where he was sitting and saw Sari and Noah charge out of the row of elevators. “I'm sorry. My friends have just come down. We have somewhere important to go.” I stood and picked up my bag. “Call me at my hotel.”

“Miss Bennett.” He sounded insistent or perhaps irritated. “Your husband's name?”

“Brooks,” I said. “John Brooks. I have to run.”

Mel studied the map for a few minutes when we got to my car. “It'll take us a while, but so what? What do you expect to find there?”

“I have no idea. It just seems to me I ought to cover every base before we go back home.”

“You're right. Who was that little man you were talking to?”

“I wish I knew. He claims to know things about Gabe and Gabe's father, but he won't talk except under his conditions. I can't set aside a lot of time. Which way do I turn from here?” We were at the curb, leaving the hotel parking lot. In my rearview mirror I could see Hal clearly.

“Left. If you can.”

“I'll do my best.”

The buildings on the street where Gabe's body had been found were old and two stories high. They were, of course, made of the same Jerusalem stone as the rest of the city, but they had a distinctly shabby look to them. Laundry dried on lines between and behind buildings. Dark-haired children played noisily on the street. I turned into an alley and stopped the car, leaving enough room behind me for Hal to park his. We got out.

“No wonder Jack didn't want you to come alone,” Hal said, joining us. His children were sitting in the backseat of their car, peering out the windows. “Where did they find the body?”

“In one of those alleys, Jack said. Not on the street we drove on.”

“What do you want to do?”

What I wanted to do was leave and forget about this. I assumed the police had canvassed the area as thoroughly as they did in the States when a crime occurred. “I want to find out exactly where the body was left and who found it. I guess that means I have to knock on doors.”

“You think they'll speak English here?”

“I'm crossing my fingers.”

“Let's go.”

Mel got into the car with her children, and Hal and I walked up the stone steps to the nearest dwelling and knocked on the door. A woman dressed all in black opened the door and listened to me introduce myself. Then she responded in what I was pretty sure was Hebrew. I looked at Hal, but he just shrugged. The woman smiled, showing two missing teeth, and closed the door.

“Don't say anything,” I said to Hal. “Maybe we'll have better luck next door.”

“You're a plucky lady,” he said. “I hope that doesn't count as having said something.”

I laughed. The next door yielded only a slightly better conversation. The woman who answered knew a few words of English but assured me she knew nothing about a body. I wasn't even sure she knew what the word meant.

Hal and I continued from house to house, smelling odd food odors as doors opened, but accomplishing nothing. One old man said in quite good English that he had spoken to the police and there was nothing more to say. I asked him exactly where the body had been, and he told me to ask the police.

When he closed the door, Hal said quietly in my ear, “I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a guy watching us. Don't turn. I'm keeping my eye on him.”

We started walking. “Where is he?”

“Right now behind us. He was standing outside one of these houses and then he started to follow us.”

“Maybe I should approach him.”

“I get the feeling he wants to approach us, but he's scared.”

“Stay here, Hal.” I turned away from him and started back, seeing a painfully thin young man about twenty feet from me. He stopped walking as I began to move toward him.

Suddenly he smiled. As I approached, he said, “You are an English lady?”

“I'm American,” I said.

“You want to talk?”

“I want to know if you saw the body here last week, the dead American man.”

“Yes, yes. I see the dead man.”

“Will you tell me about it?” I spoke very carefully, not too fast, keeping my voice modulated. He seemed so frail, I was afraid of scaring him away.

“My mother, she tell you.”

“Does your mother speak English?”

“No. I speak English. I am study in England for six months.”

“That's wonderful,” I said. “You speak very well.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, you do.”

When he smiled, I could see how crooked his teeth were, how they were filled with black spots.

“You come this way.”

I looked back at Hal, not sure whether he should join us. He was practically at my heels.

“Where're you going?” he asked.

“No, no,” the young man said. “No man. Just American lady talk to my mother.”

“You going with him?” Hal said.

“He says his mother saw the body. Can you wait outside his apartment?”

“Chris, I don't know. You may not be safe.”

“No police,” the thin fellow said. “American lady only.”

“This man's not the police. He's my friend. He will wait outside for me. Is that all right?”

“Outside is all right.”

We walked past a couple of buildings and then up some stairs. My guide was wearing a stained white shirt and black pants with sandals. His hair was collar-length and raggedly cut. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a key that opened the door. Hal hung back. I waved as I followed the young man inside.

The room into which we walked was crowded with furniture, and the tile floor was covered with a worn Oriental rug in dark reds and blacks. There were no lights on and it was pretty dark, but I could make out a plump woman, her head covered with a shawl, sitting on a sofa. I didn't like the smell in the room, but I thought I could tolerate it long enough to learn something.

“This my mother.” He said something in another language to the woman, who smiled and nodded several times. She then pointed to a chair and I sat down.

“My mother see the American man dead. You know this American?”

“Yes,” I said, deciding to stretch a truth that would be too difficult to explain.

“You ask my mother now?”

“Did she see the man?”

He asked her a short question and she responded at length, arms moving. “He have a cover, like a bed.” He seemed to be searching for a word.

“A blanket?”

He smiled. “A blanket. Yes. My mother look inside blanket. All blood on shirt. Eyes open. My mother very—” He acted out fear.

“Afraid,” I said.

“Afraid. My mother afraid.”

“Did she call the police?”

“No, no. No police.”

“But the police came.”

“Yes.”

“Did she talk to them?”

“No police. My mother, no police.”

“I understand. Then someone else called the police.”

“Maybe someone.”

“Do you know who called them?”

He shrugged.

These people clearly weren't giving anything away. I wasn't sure why he had been so anxious for me to talk to his mother when she seemed to have little to say except that she had lifted the blanket and seen the body. “Did your mother see the people who put the dead man in the street?”

He asked her. She answered briefly.

“She see two men.”

I had my copy of the drawing made from Marnie's description. I took it out of my bag and handed it to the woman. She nodded vigorously and spoke to her son.

“This is the man. This the man with the American dead.”

I took the sketch back. “Did your mother see the truck?”

He looked as though he had not understood, then smiled and spoke to her again. “She see lorry. Truck. Yes. She see it.”

“Did she see them take the American man out of the truck?”

“No,” he said, translating. “She see the truck after.”

“Did she see anything that would help me find the truck? Did she see a number on it?”

When he spoke to her, she reached under the layers of fabric she was wearing and extracted a piece of paper. She handed it to him. He looked at it and said something to her. Then he said to me, “This for you. From truck.”

I took it from him and looked at it. She had copied what looked like a license plate number in soft pencil that was now slightly smudged. I felt the excitement of having actually learned something meaningful that the police might not know. If all the people in this group of buildings were as reticent to speak to the police, and to me as well, I could imagine the police had learned very little. Perhaps the only reason they had been called when the body was found was to get rid of it.

“Is this the license plate number?” I asked.

“Yes, number of truck. My mother see number and write it down.”

“This is really very helpful,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

The mother shook her head and he said that was all. “No police,” he said. “You understand?”

“Yes, I do.” I stood and offered him my hand, but he didn't take it. I thanked him, then thanked his mother, who smiled and nodded, as though she had understood me. Then I went outside to where Hal was worriedly pacing.

“Get anything?” he asked.

“I think so. The woman wrote down what looks like the license plate number.”

“No kidding. That's pretty damn good.”

“They're terrified of the police. They didn't offer their names and I didn't ask. I'm going to find a phone and call Jack. Maybe he can run the plate and I can find out who that fake ambulance belongs to.”

“Get anything?” Mel came toward us as we neared the cars.

“She's good,” Hal said. “She may break this case yet.”

Mel grinned. “I told you.”

We stood there for a few minutes deciding whether to split up. I wanted to go back to the hotel and call Jack from there so I would be sure to have enough time to talk to him. These phone cards had a nasty habit of cutting you off unexpectedly just as you were about to say something important.

“You know what?” Mel said. “There's a great pottery place right near your hotel. Hal's cousin told me about it last night. Why don't we drive over with you, you make your phone call, and we'll all go over there together?”