The Missing File (22 page)

He waited patiently for Avraham to finish reading and said, “I made a few changes here and there, but these are the letters that were sent.”

Avraham looked at him, and again Ze'ev could not identify what it was that stared out from his eyes. He thought it was terror, but maybe that was only what he wanted to see.

“You wrote these in Ofer's name?” Avraham quietly asked.

“Yes,” Ze'ev replied.

“Why did you do that?” Avraham declared, more than asked. For the first time Ze'ev felt that the police inspector was truly interested in knowing what was going on inside him.

“It's a long story,” Ze'ev said. “And I came here to tell it to you.”

“You can tell it to me in a moment, but first tell me who you sent them to. To the police, too?”

Did he really not know? Or was he again trying to test Ze'ev's honesty? Surely this wasn't the first time he had seen the letters. And suddenly he was terrified by the thought that his letters hadn't reached their destination. Had someone removed them from the mailbox ahead of Rafael and Hannah Sharabi? He stifled a scream that was meant only for Michal's ears. If the letters did not reach their destination and Avraham was seeing them for the first time, it was rash of him to turn up and confess. It didn't make sense. Ofer's parents must have handed them over to someone else on the investigation team who hadn't informed Avraham and had hastily filed them away.

“I sent them to Ofer's parents—I mean, I slipped them in their mailbox,” Ze'ev said.

“When was this?”

“The first one, about two weeks ago; the second, that same week; and the third, last week.”

Avraham took the letters and left the room. This time he didn't come back for an hour or more.

O
n his return, Avraham asked Ze'ev to accompany him to a different room, which looked even more like an interrogation cell, and again left him there alone, asking beforehand for his cell phone.

Ze'ev waited a long time.

Policemen he didn't know entered and left without saying a word. Were they checking to see if he was still there? That he wasn't doing anything he shouldn't be doing? Perhaps they were coming in simply to get a look at him, as if he were a rare species of animal that had been trapped and confined. His plan had gone wrong, and he no longer understood Avraham's actions. The questioning had ended precisely where it should have begun.

A young policewoman brought in a tray with lunch—roast meat, mashed potatoes, and boiled peas, along with a bottle of mineral water. He drank all the water in a single gulp but didn't touch the food. Avraham returned, accompanied by a policewoman who introduced herself as an officer from the Investigations and Intelligence Division. She asked if they could interrupt his meal. He pointed toward the full tray. He wasn't eating. They showed him a calendar and asked him to recall the precise dates on which he had placed the letters in the Sharabi mailbox. He wondered if this senior officer had also read them. She had long brown hair, a little too full for his liking, and blue eyes.

“The letters you wrote are a serious criminal offense—I'm sure you realize that,” she said in a tone that angered him, that one uses to address a child. “But right now, all we want to know is what has happened to Ofer. That's all we are concerned with at this point. I'm going to ask you only once if you know what has happened to him, and I want an honest response. You know that all you say could be verified by means of a polygraph test, so it would be foolish for you to lie. Tell me now if you know what has happened to Ofer and where he is.”

He felt too tired and too hurt to have a conversation with an investigator he didn't know, and stuck to the story he had told Avraham.

“I've already said I don't know what has happened to him and that I'm not involved in his disappearance. I wish I knew where he was. If I had had anything to do with his disappearance, I wouldn't have chosen, on my own accord, to tell you about the letters and the phone call. I came here to apologize and to prevent any damage to your investigation, although I may already be too late for that.”

“So why did you write that you know what has happened to him?” she asked, and Ze'ev tried to control his tone of voice as he said, “That's not what I wrote. I suspect you haven't read them. If you had, you'd see they are written by Ofer, from his perspective, through his character. And if you'd read them properly, you'd see they say nothing about what has happened to him, because I don't know.”

“So why did you write them?” Avraham burst in.

“I was trying to tell you but didn't get a chance because you ended our conversation,” he answered quietly. “I realize it was a mistake to send the letters, but for me they were part of a novel I was working on. That's how I saw them, though I'm realizing now that probably seems disturbing to you. I wanted to write a book made up of letters from a missing boy to his parents. But I don't have any information about what happened to Ofer. And I'm willing to take a polygraph test whenever you like.”

This was not how he had wanted to share his story with Avraham. To tell him how he wrote the letters, how important they were. The senior investigations officer looked at him with contempt, maybe hatred. What she said about him writing the letters, that it was a serious criminal offense, was just ridiculous.

They left the room.

Ze'ev tasted the mashed potatoes and ate most of the peas using a white plastic spoon. Later that afternoon he knocked several times on the door of the interrogation room. Avraham eventually came in and Ze'ev asked how long he was still expected to wait and if he could speak to Michal.

“Your wife has already called,” was Avraham's reply, which frightened Ze'ev.

“Who spoke to her?” he asked. “What did you tell her?”

“She was told that you're being questioned and that we'd keep her informed of any developments.”

“When am I getting out of here?”

“That's hard to say.”

“Can you at least tell me if I need a lawyer?”

“I don't know when we'll continue with the questioning, or in what manner,” Avraham replied. “For now, we'd like to ask you to remain here. And you're okay with that, aren't you?”

“What do you mean, ‘you'd like to ask me'? Do I have a choice?”

“Yes. But if you say you want to leave, we will immediately arrest you. We have more than enough cause. In the meantime, though, we haven't decided what to do with you, and we'd appreciate it if you'd be patient.”

Ze'ev imagined he was waiting in line at the doctor's or at the Tax Authority and felt less intimidated. He then looked around the interrogation room to make a mental note of its appearance. Avraham had been shocked by the letters, as if he were seeing them for the first time, and Ze'ev recalled what Michael Rosen had said at the workshop about the one reader whom every text should terrify. Perhaps it wasn't Ofer's parents but Avraham who was his real addressee? When he thought that it was already evening, he asked Avraham if he could please phone his wife.

He knew right away that she was crying. In the background, he could hear the sound of Elie and his mother-in-law, who had stayed over. Had Michal told her where he was, and why?

“I can't talk now, but everything will be okay, Michali,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you that I haven't been arrested. They aren't arresting me, do you understand? They just want to continue the questioning. Please don't cry.”

“But you're coming home today, right? How did they react?”

He looked over at Avraham, who could hear her. “I don't know. I hope so.”

“Do you want me to call a lawyer?”

“I don't know what to tell you. I don't really understand what's happening. I hope I'll be home in a few hours. What did you say to your mother?”

Her crying pained him, but he couldn't suppress the anger he felt at knowing he was there because of her.

She didn't answer his question.

“Okay, Michali, I need to hang up now. Kisses for Elie,” he said. She asked him not to go, but he said he had no choice and hung up.

13

“H
ello?”

Avraham recognized Hannah Sharabi's voice, though he had not heard it for a long time.

There was no tension in her voice. She had not been waiting for a call, but was not surprised when the phone rang so early in the morning.

“Is this the Sharabi residence?”

Ze'ev Avni sounded hesitant, rushed, and very tired. The hesitancy slowed his speech, almost to a standstill; the urgency fastened the syllables together. He sounded uncertain of his ability to say his piece. At that point in the conversation he could still end the call. He had come through a long night at the station, with no sleep and very little food. In the morning, when they brought him a cup of coffee in the interrogation room, he had taken one sip of the scalding-hot drink and drank no more, as if he had forgotten about it.

“Yes. Who is this?” Hannah Sharabi replied.

The conversation between Ze'ev Avni and Hannah Sharabi took place at 7:15 a.m., but Avraham heard it after 8:00 a.m., on the recording device in Shrapstein's office. He couldn't recall the location of the telephone in the Sharabi apartment. He imagined Hannah picking up the receiver in the kitchen while clearing the remains of breakfast from the table, or rushing to answer the phone from one of the children's rooms.

“I'm calling about Ofer,” came Avni's voice. There was silence at the other end of the line. “Can you hear me?” he asked.

A moment later, Rafael Sharabi's voice could be heard from the recording device. He must have been nearby when the phone rang and Hannah had called him to her with a gesture of a hand or her pale face. “Who is this? What do you want?” the father asked.

“I put Ofer's letters in the mailbox. I know where he is.”

Silence again. Rafael Sharabi could have hung up, just as Hannah could have, but he kept holding the receiver.

So he did it. Avraham wasn't sure that Avni would go through with it. He'd had a hunch—or maybe it was hope—that Avni would reject their offer at the very last minute.

“Can you hear me?” Avni asked Rafael Sharabi. “I know where Ofer is, and I can tell you.”

Avni wasn't distorting his voice, yet it wasn't easy to make out the words. Was he covering the mouthpiece with his T-shirt?

“Who are you? Why are you calling us?” Rafael Sharabi asked, and Avni repeated his previous words. “I know where Ofer is and what he's been doing since he went missing,” he said. “I'll call in the evening to tell you.”

The call ended.

Shrapstein turned off the recorder and triumphantly smiled at Ilana and Avraham. Avraham was holding a white polystyrene cup filled with Turkish coffee; he must have had seven or eight of these since coming to the station some twenty-four hours earlier. Ilana drank her coffee. It had been a sleepless night for all of them.

“That's it. That was an hour ago,” Shrapstein said. “He did it—that lunatic. Now it's just a waiting game.”

And they waited.

I
t all started the day before—the moment that lunatic, to use Shrapstein's words, knocked on his door.

Ze'ev Avni was wearing black trousers and a light-blue collared shirt, as if he had dressed up for an important work meeting. Only later did it occur to Avraham that his attire resembled a police uniform. He was sure the teacher was there to speak about a different matter, as he had indicated when they'd spoken during his trip to Brussels. It fitted the man's character, or at least what Avraham could make out of it. He'd probably want to speak about himself. Perhaps he suspected one of his students was using drugs.

And then Avni told him about the call to the police.

He confessed in a flowery tone, as if he were reciting an item on a news broadcast. Avraham left the office to inform Ilana and to check when exactly the call had come through and what had been said—although he hadn't forgotten. It was on his birthday, while he was at his parents' house, the last time he had visited them.

“What do you think it all means?” Ilana asked.

“That I was right,” Avraham replied with an air of confidence. “That my gut feeling was right. He's involved far more than he has let on until now.”

He felt scared by the thought of where it all might lead, but he also felt a sense of exhilaration. He had been right all along. Now the investigation was his again and a safe distance away from Ofer's parents.

“What are you going to do with him?” Ilana asked, and he said, “I don't know yet. I'll continue with the questioning, and then I think we should book him—for obstructing a police investigation, to begin with—and get a search warrant for his apartment and computer. He may also have an office at the school. I'll check.”

“Keep me posted on your progress and let me know if you need anything,” Ilana said.

Avraham returned to his office to find Avni standing in front of the shelves on the wall and staring at the cardboard files. The teacher turned to face him, surprised. Ofer's case file wasn't on the shelves. Avraham had taken it home the day before, and had placed it in his desk drawer that morning.

He switched on the recorder and asked Avni to repeat his confession.

What exactly was he thinking at this stage of the investigation? He tried not to let his hopes get ahead of the information he now had, but it was impossible not to after two and a half weeks of barren inquiries and countless small failures, coupled with the sense that the case was slipping away and with his ever-increasing concern for Ofer's fate. He needed to continue questioning Avni without jumping to conclusions; the investigation had to remain open to every possibility, but he believed he now had the end of the thread that would lead to Ofer, that it was in his grasp, between his fingers—and it was stronger than him. Had Avni helped Ofer to hide somewhere? That was the first possibility. The second was more disturbing. He looked at the teacher sitting in front of him, examining his posture, his eyes, but could not yet see anything definitive in them.

Avni's interrogation unfolded in various directions, taking sharp twists and turns that were designed to rattle the teacher and undermine his self-confidence. Avraham tried to surprise him with a question about Ofer's backpack, and scared him with short, direct questions about his family. But he got the impression that frightening Avni wasn't the way to go; it would be better to make him feel appreciated and understood. Without planning to, he asked if Avni thought Ofer loved him, and the teacher appeared taken aback. He kept pounding into him that Ofer had insisted the private lessons stop, and felt that Avni was losing his confidence, that he was about to say something he had not planned on confessing. He was on the threshold of victory, on the verge of confirming his intuition, just about to prove that Shrapstein and Ilana were wrong, that he was right—when Avni told him about the letters.

It took a while to sink in.

He left the room again and called Ma'alul, to ask if he had heard anything about anonymous letters sent to Ofer's parents while he was in Brussels. Ma'alul knew nothing about them. “Why do you ask? What letters?” he asked, but Avraham had already hung up and walked into Shrapstein's office without knocking. It was panic rather than understanding that he was feeling. “Did Ofer's parents try to contact you while I was in Brussels?” Shrapstein said no. He had never heard of any letters. Avraham stood outside the station and smoked a cigarette. After two hot days, the morning was fresh, almost cool. He spotted a young woman at a distance, near the entrance to the Technology Institute, who turned around when she saw him and walked off. Was it Avni's wife?

He thought about what he should tell Ilana over the phone.

“What do you make of it?” she asked, as if she wanted the words to come from his mouth and not hers, and he said, “That apparently Ofer's parents have concealed the letters, God knows why. But they've kept information from us.”

“And you believe that he put the letters in their mailbox?”

He hesitated before replying. “I think so. Why would he confess to something like that if it wasn't true?”

Ilana was at the station within half an hour. She took the letters from him.

Because Avni was waiting in his office, they crowded into Shrapstein's cool room. Ilana insisted on including him in the decision.

At Ilana's request, Avraham gave them a brief rundown on Avni—thirty-five years old, married with a baby, and living in the building on Histadrut Street for just over a year; before then in Tel Aviv, where he taught English at a high school. Tutored Ofer for four months in the winter and claims to have developed a close relationship with the boy. May have a somewhat distorted view of reality. The investigation revealed that Ofer asked to end the lessons. He claims to have felt an uncontrollable urge to intervene in the investigation from day one. He therefore called the station two days into the inquiries and passed on false—or so he says—information about the location of Ofer's body. He began writing the letters for the same reason. He also participated in some of the searches. All the above made it obvious why Avraham became suspicious. Avni came across as not completely stable, so his statement required verification, but it did not seem he was lying. He had confessed to both the phone call and the letters voluntarily.

They then spoke about the parents.

Shrapstein opposed Ilana's suggestion—that they get a search warrant for the Sharabi apartment in order to find the letters and other evidence of their efforts to impede an investigation. “If they've destroyed the letters, we'll have a problem,” he said, “because they'll know we doubt their stories and will become even more cautious. Perhaps we should just detain them and bring them in for questioning for forty-eight hours?”

Avraham wanted to voice a protest but felt he had lost that right. Ilana was of two minds. She said, “It's too soon. I can't detain the parents of a missing youth so easily—even if they did receive the letters. We have no proof other than what we've been told by that teacher, and he's fed false information to the police once before. I can't imagine why they didn't report the letters either. Maybe just stupidity and nothing more.”

Ilana's words gave him hope. “Perhaps they didn't receive them?” he suggested. “Someone may have taken the letters out of their mailbox, right?”

The other two didn't respond. Standing on Shrapstein's desk was a framed photograph of his wife and two small children. Ze'ev Avni's letters, written in black ink, lay next to it.

“I suggest we go back to the idea of the wiretap,” Shrapstein said. “We have enough evidence now to get an okay from the court.”

“What will that give us?” Ilana asked, and Shrapstein said, “You never know. If they failed to report the letters, there's a chance they may be concealing more information.”

Ilana looked over at Avraham. Was she expecting him to say something? She then excused herself and left the room, leaving them alone. Shrapstein kept silent at first, although he clearly wanted to say something. “Do you think he's completely crazy?” he finally asked, and Avraham said, “I can't figure him out—I don't understand why he wrote the letters, and particularly in Ofer's name, and even more so why he's now come to tell me about them.”

Shrapstein couldn't hold back. “Perhaps he's fallen in love with you, too,” he quipped.

Avraham went out to smoke another cigarette.

Ilana returned to the office after him, and she sounded decisive again. “Okay, Eyal, there's been a decision. You and I are going to the district court because I need to be there in order to file a request for a wiretap. We'll set it up immediately. We'll also request an arrest warrant for the parents, but we won't use it just yet. We'll wait to see what else comes out of the interrogation of the teacher. You'll continue with that, Avi. Get the exact dates on which he put the letters in the mailbox, and find out if he saw either the father or the mother take them out. And send Ma'alul over to have a look at the mailbox.”

He suddenly remembered that Rafael and Hannah Sharabi had arranged to come to the station that afternoon. “Cancel it,” Ilana ordered. “I don't want them here right now. We need to prepare for that interview. For now, continue with the teacher.”

“But what do I do with him? Should I arrest him?”

Ilana looked at Shrapstein again.

“I think not—not just yet,” Shrapstein said. “He came in of his own accord, and as long as he isn't asking to leave, it's best not to arrest him. An arrest means a lawyer, and the entire building would soon know, including Ofer's parents. It wouldn't be in our best interest for them to know he's been arrested, right?”

No. Not now.

Ze'ev Avni was still waiting in his office.

A
vraham's conversation with Rafael and Hannah Sharabi was the most difficult part of that day. There was no reply from their home line and he got hold of the father on his cell phone. He told him something about a meeting that was running late and asked that they not come down to the station, and he promised to be in touch to schedule their talk for another time. “We haven't heard anything new,” the father replied in a steady voice to his question, adding, “Have you received the results of the tests on the bag yet?”

He stopped himself from saying anything and ruining the investigation. How could you have concealed the letters? Why the hell did you do that? What are you afraid of? Why are you complicating things for yourselves for no reason? How could you not have told me about letters written in Ofer's name and placed in your mailbox, even if you thought he didn't write them? He said, “The results haven't come back yet. I'll let you know the moment they do, but it won't be before tomorrow.”

To have his office back, Avraham moved Ze'ev Avni to an empty interrogation room and then ordered a tray of lunch for the teacher. He ate alone while waiting for Shrapstein and Ilana, as if he were afraid to continue the questioning without them. At one point, he went into the interrogation room and sat silently facing Avni for a minute or two. “I'd really like to tell you why I wrote those letters in Ofer's name—how the idea was born and why I didn't think it was such a terrible thing to do,” the teacher began. “Can you listen to me now?” Avraham left the room because he could not bear to hear Avni's voice, and maybe also to put more pressure on him. He still believed Avni would break down and confess that he never sent the letters.