The Bar Mitzvah Murder (8 page)

In the evening we looked at a map. Nazareth was off to the west, too far to attempt on Sunday. We decided to go to mass at the church on the Mount of the Beatitudes, where there was also a convent, and then visit another place someone in the hotel suggested, as it was more or less on our way back south. This was a very old synagogue, Bet-Alpha, dating back to the sixth century A.D. or, as they say in Israel, the Common Era. This synagogue was discovered in the 1920s and unearthed after that.

What was exceptionally beautiful was the mosaic work on the floor, which is covered with images of mammals and birds, Jewish religious objects, and designs. What surprised me the most was the zodiac, the months of the year, and the seasons. Apparently, there was a time when the Jews worshiped the zodiac. We walked around, looking at all the beautiful images, happy they had been found and preserved.

When we left, we headed back to Jerusalem.

13

As soon as we hit Jerusalem, we were lost. The road signs got us to the city, but apparently, either you know your way in the city or you do your best. I scrambled to find a street on the map and direct Jack, but I didn't do very well. Suddenly I saw something familiar.

“You know, we're near that unpronounceable place Mel and I went to the first day we shopped.”

“Get me there.”

“Yes, sir.” I managed it and we parked the car and got out, stretching our legs for the first time in a couple of hours.

“Restaurants and jewelry,” Jack said, looking around. “I'm not hungry.”

“Neither am I.”

“Let's buy you a present.”

We looked in a few shops on the street level, then went up to the wonderful shop where Mel had made her purchases. The woman inside recognized me and gave us a smile.

“This is more like it,” Jack said. “What do you like?”

“Almost everything,” I said. “But let's not spend too much.”

“Stop bossing me around. I'm the only boss in the family.”

I laughed. I let Jack lead me around the room. He would pull a necklace off its stand and have me model it. Then another. Then another. He refused to let me look at a price tag. I stood in front of a mirror and tried on one after the other. Just as I thought I might have made up my mind, he would come over with something else that he liked.

“They're really beautiful,” I said, finally accepting that one of them would be mine.

“I like the blues.”

“So do I.”

“Try this one again.”

I tried it.

“Like it?”

“I love it.”

“It's yours.” He took it off me and went to the table to pay for it.

“That's one of my favorites,” the woman said, putting it in a box that she tied with gold elastic. She turned to me. “You're going to love wearing it.”

“I know. I'm so glad to have something so pretty.”

As we walked down the stone steps, I felt wonderful. Jack seemed delighted with the purchase. Feeling very good, we went back to the hotel and called my in-laws.

On Monday morning I dropped Jack off as usual and then drove to the Grosses' hotel, observing that I was now able to do this without consulting a map or feeling nervous. Hal had agreed the night before to sit and talk to me while Mel kept the children busy. I had the distinct feeling Hal was ready to stop being a twenty-four-hour father now that he had done it for a full week.

As I drove to the hotel, I heard the distinctive sound of an Israeli siren. Pulling over to the curb, I watched an ambulance drive by, lights flashing. To my surprise, the word AMBULANCE was painted on the side of the vehicle in English as well as Hebrew.

I arrived at the hotel early and sat in the lobby to wait. Hal knew where to meet me and I wasn't in a hurry. I had brought a book with me, as it was a little too early to pick up an American newspaper. As I looked in my bag for it, a man's voice said, “This chair is free?”

I looked up. He was probably in his seventies and very round, especially his face, giving him a friendly look. “Yes. Please take it.” As I said it, I wondered why he had chosen that particular chair. There were more empty seats than occupied ones around the room.

He let himself down carefully, as though moving with too great speed or energy might put his body in jeopardy. “Ah,” he said as he landed on the cushion. “A good chair.”

I smiled.

“You are with the Gross party?”

“A friend of mine is.”

“A very sad thing, his death.”

“Yes, it is.” I wondered where this was going.

“I knew Mr. Gross.”

“The man who died?”

“Gabriel, yes. And I knew his father before him.”

“Who are you?” I asked. I didn't feel threatened, but I felt a little strange. This man had sought me out to talk to me.

“My name is Simon Kaplan. Don't ask me where I'm from. In a short conversation I don't have the time to name all the places.”

“You've traveled a lot.”

“I have lived a lot. I have almost died, but something saved me. More than once.”

“You're a lucky man.” I was curious to know what the point of all this was, but I thought it would be a mistake to hurry him.

“You could say that. You are not a Jewish woman.”

“No, I'm Catholic.”

“Ah, Catholic. There are many wonderful things for Catholics to see in Israel.”

“So I've found out.”

“But you have a Jewish friend.”

“I know many Jewish people. And Catholics and Protestants.”

He nodded. “You were here last Sunday when Mr. Gross became ill?”

“No. I heard about it afterward.”

“It was not an ambulance that took him away.”

Suddenly I had a witness. “How do you know?”

“The size was wrong. The shape was wrong. It came without a siren.”

“You saw it come, Mr. Kaplan?”

“I was walking back to the hotel—I like a walk after a big meal—and I just happened to see the truck parked about a block away from the hotel.”

“Just parked on the street?”

“Yes, exactly. A man sat at the wheel. He had a little telephone in his hand. Of course, nowadays everyone has a little phone in his hand, so I didn't pay much attention. But this man was listening to his phone, not saying anything, just listening, and then, like that, he put it down and started driving to the hotel. I stood and watched everything that happened.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, suddenly realizing something was wrong. “That didn't happen at this hotel.”

“No, it happened where the Bar Mitzvah party was.”

“How did you happen to be there?”

“That is the wrong question, my dear. I was staying at that hotel. That is why I was there. The question is, how do I happen to be here now?”

“What's the answer?” I was beginning to wonder if he was playing some kind of game.

“The answer is, I moved from that hotel to this one a few days ago.”

“Why?”

“Murder makes me nervous.” He smiled and his whole round face lit up. Even his glasses seemed to shine.

“It makes me nervous, too. Have you told the police what you saw?”

“I don't see how it would help them. They know by now that the ambulance was not an ambulance, that Gabriel Gross was not sick; he was attacked. What could my little bit of information contribute?”

“What else do you know?” I asked.

“Before I decide whether to answer, please tell me what your interest is in his death.”

“I'm a good friend of one of Gabriel's cousins.”

“I see. And you are interested in finding out who killed him.”

“If I can. The police weren't much help after it happened. The family couldn't convince them that he was missing.”

“One hears such stories.”

“What made you come to me?” I asked.

“I have seen you here, talking to members of the Gross party. I have overheard bits of conversations.”

I had interviewed Susan Greene down here, I remembered. And I had sat at Lenny's table at breakfast time. It was possible that this little man had been nearby both times and I had not seen him. But the whole situation made me uneasy. He had watched me; he had sought me out. It flickered through my mind that I might be in some danger, although I usually discount that possibility with older people.

“Are you here to help me?” I asked.

“I, also, would like to find the killer of Gabriel. A man in the prime of his life should not die so others may benefit.”

“Who will benefit from his death?”

“Many people. The obvious ones, of course—his wife, his children, the woman he was married to many years ago.” He stopped speaking, almost abruptly.

“Perhaps they might have benefited more if he had lived another twenty or thirty years,” I suggested.

“That is the long view. Many people nowadays have no patience. They cannot see beyond tomorrow. These people can be dangerous.”

“Will you benefit from his death?” I asked.

“I? That is a somewhat impertinent question.”

“You chose to sit here, Mr. Kaplan.”

“I did, yes. Hmm.” He sat nodding slightly, as though formulating a response. “No, I will not benefit from Gabriel's death. I have been retired many years now. I am too old to be mentioned in anyone's will and I have no financial interest in any company at the moment. I benefit from the lives of good people. Gabriel's life was a good one. I feel diminished by his death. You have read the poet John Donne?”

“I have. Many times.”

“ ‘Every man's death diminishes me.' Do you believe that?”

“I do.”

“We have all lost. Everyone.” He looked down at his lap.

“Do you know who killed him, Mr. Kaplan?” I asked.

“If only I did. I would like to bring those people to justice.”

“What
do
you know?” I had the feeling we might sit here for hours talking about poetry, about good and evil, and getting nowhere.

“I know the driver of the ‘ambulance' was waiting for a signal. I know the direction in which the truck left the hotel. Ah, someone is looking for you?”

I turned to see Hal approaching. “Yes, but please continue.”

“What is your name, my dear?”

“Christine Bennett,” I said, using the name I generally gave.

“And you are staying at this hotel?”

“I'm at the American Colony Hotel.”

“Of course. A lovely place. We will speak again.” He raised himself from the chair, bowed his head deferentially in my direction, and took off.

“Chris, hi. Sorry I'm late.” Hal shook my hand.

“This is very weird,” I said. “That little man claims to have seen the ambulance pull up at the hotel where the party was last week. He's rather garrulous and I don't know if he knows anything useful, but he sought me out to talk to me.”

“He's not a relative.”

“No, but he claims to have known Gabe and also Gabe's father.”

“Interesting. Maybe you'll run into him again.”

“Well, let's get started.”

“OK. I've made some notes about Gabe. I don't know if they'll be useful, but just in case. Where do you want to begin?”

I flipped open my notebook. “Gabe was older than you, wasn't he?”

“Quite a bit. He's in his fifties. He used to tell me he remembered the day I was born because my father called his father to tell him. I just remember him from all the family get-togethers. Gabe was always a lot of fun. He was smart, he could tell great stories, and he always wanted to have a good time.”

“Were you at his first wedding?”

“Yeah. In fact, I think it may have been the first wedding I ever attended. I sat at the children's table with a lot of cousins at the dinner after the ceremony. It was a great wedding. Gabe was in his twenties, early twenties, I think, and Debby wore a dress that had all the women gasping. It was huge, billowing. I've never seen anything like it since.”

“Where did Gabe go to school, Hal?”

“University of Rochester. I couldn't remember, so I called his brother last night. Gabe was a good student.”

“And after he graduated?”

“He took some time off, traveled in Europe. His father didn't want him to, said he'd never get a job, but Gabe insisted and finally my uncle gave in. Gabe was gone about six months or so. He hitchhiked all over, fell in love with a cute little Dane, but decided not to do anything about it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“My uncle would have killed him if he'd married her.”

“I see.”

“So he came back and went to work for my uncle.”

“What kind of work was that?”

“I think at first my uncle made parts for machinery. I know he had a lot of government contracts. He made Gabe learn the business from the bottom up. By the time he'd been there a year or two, he knew as much as his father, and he had some pretty good ideas to contribute.”

“Did Gabe take over the business?”

“When his father retired, yes. But he moved it in a different direction. He started subcontracting a lot of work and opened factories outside the United States. It really became a global business. And it took in a lot more money than my uncle ever dreamed of,” he added.

“Gabe has a son,” I said. “Did he go into the business, too?”

“You know, when he was a kid, he worked there summers. I think Gabe hoped he could do for Barry what his father had done for him. The divorce kind of put an end to all that.”

“They were really estranged.”

“Yeah, they really were.”

I flipped a page. “Tell me about Marnie.”

Hal smiled a little. “Marnie is exactly what she seems to be, Gabe's second, much younger wife. If you're about to ask if she broke up the first marriage, the answer is no. He met her some time after he moved out of the house he owned with Debby.”

“Maybe there was another woman in between?” I suggested. I still didn't have a motive and I was looking wherever there might be one.

“Chris, if Gabe had a girlfriend on the side when he was living with Debby, he kept it to himself. I never heard a whiff of a rumor that he was carrying on, as my mother likes to say, with anyone. Sure there could have been someone, but he was discreet. More likely, he and Debby just had problems they couldn't cope with and they split up because of them.”

I have always been intrigued by the notion of problems that arise between married couples. We all go into marriage believing it's forever, promising that it will be forever. And then things happen. Jack and I have both changed so much since the day we met at the Sixty-fifth Precinct in Brooklyn back when we were thirty years old that I sometimes find it a little amazing that we have both adjusted so well to the changes in ourselves and each other. Perhaps it's just that we're both so busy we haven't had time to notice.