The Missing File (7 page)

The smartly dressed woman who had been speaking to Avraham got into a car parked at the side of the road. This was his chance.

Z
e'ev tapped Avraham on the shoulder from behind. “Excuse me, Inspector Avraham. Can I speak to you for a moment?” he said, breathing heavily as if he had just run a marathon.

Avraham turned to him, surprised both by the light touch on his shoulder and the face he saw in front of him.

“Do you remember me?” Ze'ev asked, adding immediately, before Avraham had a chance to respond: “I'm the neighbor from Ofer's building. You spoke with my wife on Thursday and said you would come back to see us. The second floor. I was Ofer's private English tutor.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I wasn't able to return, as we were overloaded with work that afternoon. We may call you in this week to continue the interview.”

Ze'ev wasn't sure if he did indeed remember. Just as he did on Thursday, Avraham appeared stressed and agitated—on top of being very tired now too.

“I've come to help with the search in the meantime,” Ze'ev said. “I've been here since the morning. First we looked through the building sites, presumably based on your instructions. You're in charge of the investigation, right?”

Avraham ignored the question. Was someone else in charge, or was he not allowed to divulge such information? “And did you find anything?” he asked.

“No,” Ze'ev said. “But I'm not sure we knew exactly what we were looking for.”

“Anything that could be related to Ofer.”

“I understand, but how are we supposed to know what could be related to Ofer and what isn't?”

Avraham appeared not to know what to say or how to respond to the person who had tapped him on his shoulder. He began to walk away, and Ze'ev escorted him. They walked side by side across the sand, like acquaintances—or commander and deputy, shoulder to shoulder, just as Ze'ev had imagined they would when the notion to call had lit up in his thoughts. But Avraham seemed to have no intention of asking Ze'ev anything at all, and if he himself didn't speak up, their conversation would dry up then and there. One of the policemen or volunteers could turn up at any moment and claim the inspector's attention, and then it would be impossible to renew the dialogue in the same natural way it had started.

“Do you have any breakthroughs in the investigation?” Ze'ev asked. And Avraham again looked surprised, as if he hadn't noticed that Ze'ev was walking along with him.

“No, not for the moment,” he replied.

“So why, then, is the search taking place here? And, as I asked before, what are we actually looking for?”

“Nothing special.”

There was more than just a touch of impatience, even rudeness, in Avraham's tone, and in the fact that he kept on walking. Ze'ev continued, nevertheless: “I'm just curious to know how the commander of an investigation decides where to conduct searches. Aren't searches in a particular area usually based on solid information?”

Avraham stopped again. “We have nothing concrete at the moment, just some general information that he was seen hanging around here,” he said.

As he did on Thursday, Avraham again surprised Ze'ev. What was that about hanging around here? Did the policewoman he had spoken to not hear what he had said? Or was Avraham lying? It was exactly what Ze'ev had planned to say when he called—that Ofer was alive, that he knew Ofer was alive and knew where to look for him. In the end, however, without meaning to, he had blurted out that the police needed to look for a body—and then hung up. Had his speech been so rushed that the policewoman hadn't understood him?

Nothing that had happened the previous evening had gone according to plan.

Initially, he intended to use the public telephone on Shprintzak Street, which ran between the Cinematheque and the school where he taught in Tel Aviv; but then he decided that wouldn't be very wise. He headed into Tel Aviv after all, stopping at four different kiosks before finding one that sold calling cards for public phone booths. He thought he'd be able to find a public telephone somewhere in the south of Tel Aviv, close to the old Central Bus Station, which now played home to African refugees and foreign workers. But the darkness of the empty streets had frightened him, and he continued farther north. He stopped and parked his motorbike on Allenby Street, taking off his helmet and placing it on the seat. The telephone was out of order. He returned to the center of the city and found a working phone alongside the Gat cinema house, at a very busy intersection. He would have liked to have found one on a quieter street, but it was now or never. And then, just before he again picked up the receiver to make the call, he heard someone call out his name. He froze in fright.

Orna Abiri, a young math teacher from the school, walked up to him and kissed him twice on the cheek—not the usual greeting she gave him when they were at work. She introduced Ze'ev to her two friends and asked what he was doing there. He was embarrassed, at a loss for words, and finally blurted out something about having just seen a movie. Luckily, she didn't ask him about it. Although they had no particular relationship at school, she asked him if he'd like to join them at a bar nearby. Ze'ev declined, apologizing and saying he was on his way to see some friends.

“Do you need a phone?” she asked before they parted, and Ze'ev, thinking she was offering him her telephone number for some reason, said, “What?”

“You appeared to be about to make a call from the public telephone. If you need to make a call, I have a cell phone.”

Ze'ev laughed. “No, I've just finished a call. I forgot to take the address and left my cell phone at home.”

He managed to make the call only after 10:00 p.m., from a pay phone near the beach.

“What? Ofer was seen wandering around here?” Ze'ev asked Avraham, unable to conceal the astonishment in his voice. “Does that mean you have information that he is alive?”

“Why shouldn't he be alive?”

Ze'ev was flustered. “No, I meant to ask if you know where he might be,” he said.

“We don't know anything for certain. We try to check all the information we receive.”

“And what makes you trust this information?” Ze'ev asked, continuing to probe. “Surely you don't carry out searches after every phone call you get.”

Avraham peered at Ze'ev in wonderment. “We try to follow up on everything,” he said.

A young policewoman approached them. She was carrying a rag that was once a pair of brown corduroy trousers. “Excuse me now, I need to go,” Avraham said impatiently. “Thank you for joining the search, and I promise someone will call you to make arrangements for a second interview. What's your name again?”

“Ze'ev Avni,” Ze'ev replied, hurriedly adding: “And it's good that you asked. The policewoman who interviewed me on Thursday didn't ask. I'll be happy to speak to you about Ofer. I don't know what you have learned about him so far, but I have lots to say. I think I got to know Ofer well during the months I tutored him.”

Inspector Avraham made a signal with his hand and the policewoman put the corduroy trousers into a large black plastic bag. “At the very least we're cleaning up the dunes. We've turned into the nature conservation authority,” Ze'ev heard her say.

H
e didn't return to the searchers after parting company with Avraham. He was satisfied to a certain extent with the wealth of detail he had gathered, but it was diluted by the bitterness and disappointment he felt from his too-brief talk with the inspector. He had pictured them in his imagination speaking for hours, exchanging information and ideas about the case. He wanted to go home and suddenly regretted coming without his motorbike.

On his way home he could feel a sense of gloom spreading through him and didn't at first know why. Was it because he had suddenly understood the seriousness of his actions? Or was it because of Avraham's impatience, the fact that he hadn't remembered him when he introduced himself? He hoped he hadn't called for nothing. Nevertheless, Avraham appeared to have listened to him for a short while, and he did genuinely seem intent on calling him in for another talk about Ofer.

And then it dawned on him.

His legs shook, and he had the feeling he was frozen to the spot, although in actual fact, without sensing it, he had picked up his walking pace.

In one of the questions he had asked Inspector Avraham, seemingly off the cuff, he'd said something about the fact that the information based on which the searches were being carried out had been received by telephone—though Avraham hadn't mentioned it. Perhaps he could explain knowing this by saying he had heard one of the policemen say something about it?

Ze'ev couldn't remember how he got home. He hoped Michal would be there, but when he opened the door, the apartment was empty. He lay down on their bed and forced his eyes closed, like children do.

He was sure a policeman would be knocking on the door at any minute.

5

P
ressing his palm down on the metal door handle to Ilana's office was one of those moments in his work that Avraham lived for. One moment he'd be at Tel Aviv District Police Headquarters, and an instant later, when the door closed behind him, he'd be entirely somewhere else—at home. Sometimes she'd be waiting for him at the door as he stepped inside.

And it's not like the office on the second floor of the new building on Salame Street was very different from other police offices. In the center stood a wide desk of dark wood, and on it, a flat-screen Dell monitor. Framed police diplomas and certificates of merit hung on the walls alongside pictures of the president and prime minister. A large photograph, of spectacular beauty and breathtaking color, showed Vancouver's Lions Gate Bridge at sunset; Ilana had spent a number of years there on official duty, with her family, and she always said that a part of her had “remained in that cold city and didn't come back.” Two smaller photographs were of Ilana herself—one with a former Supreme Court president justice and the other, taken many years ago, with a pop star. Ilana was young at the time, and her hair was long and brown, without the interwoven gray strands she had had since they first met. The most precious photograph of all stood on the desk, framed in black—a family picture taken in front of the Church of the Sacré-Cœur in Paris, on a trip ahead of the enlistment of Ilana's eldest son, Amir. The soon-to-be-soldier towers joyfully above his younger two brothers and sister in the center of the picture, as tall as his father and mother, who embrace him on either side. A training accident took his life a few months later.

“You can come in,” Ilana said, leaving Avraham feeling deflated on realizing that Shrapstein had got there before him. They were in the middle of a conversation and Ilana was laughing out loud.

“Come in, Avi,” Ilana continued. “Eyal is updating me on the results of yesterday's searches.”

“You mean the lack of results,” Shrapstein interjected, with Ilana replying, presumably continuing the talk that had started before his arrival, “A leather jacket isn't too bad. It can be cleaned up and worn. I read somewhere that leather is coming back.”

“And don't forget the corduroys,” Shrapstein added with a laugh.

Right away Avraham felt under attack. He had been puzzled the previous evening by the decision to assign Shrapstein to the investigation team. Why had she thought he needed another officer on the team? “He's available, and you know he's brilliant, Avi, if intolerable at times. You are the senior investigator, you head the team. Use him as you please, he'll be of value to you,” Ilana had said, trying to justify her decision.

“When is Eliyahu coming?” Avraham asked.

“He's on the way. He'll be here in three minutes,” Ilana replied. “Eyal, you know you owe Avi some good wishes. He had a birthday on Friday.”

She had wanted to make him happy, but instead he cringed in his seat.

“Congratulations! How old are you?” Shrapstein asked.

And Ilana, who felt the uneasiness she had aroused, answered for him: “Not yet forty. Still a kid. So, Avi, you have two more years as a ‘promising young investigator.' The title remains valid until forty.”

“So I have almost ten years left, then,” Shrapstein said.

Eliyahu Ma'alul came in, dressed, for some unknown reason, in a gray Windbreaker, and greeted everyone with his standard opening line: “I see I am upping the average age but lowering the average beauty in the room.” He placed a hand on Avraham's shoulder and bent over to whisper, “It's good to see you,” before sitting down in the chair alongside him.

“Okay, let's get started,” Ilana said. “I'm short on time. Give us the briefing, Avi, and try to make it as detailed as possible.”

Avraham placed the thin investigation file on the desk and removed the three pages he had printed out and stapled together that morning at the station. “So this is what we have,” he said. “Ofer Sharabi, a resident of Holon, born December 1994, no criminal record, missing since Wednesday morning. He left for school as usual on Wednesday, before eight a.m., but never got there. We found no note or anything else to indicate he has run away. His cell phone was left at home, so cellular tracking is not an option. The complaint to the police was filed on Thursday morning by his mother, Hannah Sharabi—”

Shrapstein already cut him short, raising his hand and beginning to speak immediately—a self-confident student who doesn't need a signal from the teacher to interrupt his lecture. “That's more than twenty-four hours after his disappearance. A little late, don't you think?”

“Not exactly. The mother learned that he hadn't been at school only on Wednesday afternoon, when he failed to return home,” Avraham responded. “In fact, she showed up at the station Wednesday evening, but wasn't definitive about filing a complaint.”

Ilana remained silent, but Shrapstein didn't relent. “What do you mean, she wasn't definitive? Who spoke to her?”

“I was the duty officer,” Avraham replied. “She arrived in the evening and wasn't sure about filing a complaint.”

Ilana stopped Shrapstein from continuing. “Let's move on,” she said. “These details are irrelevant for now. If they turn out to be important, we'll get back to them at a later stage. Let's move ahead.”

“As I was saying,” Avraham continued, “the investigation opened on Thursday, with notifications in the media and on the Internet, along with initial questioning of the family, friends, and neighbors. We also conducted a preliminary search of the boy's room, as well as an examination of his computer and cell phone. There have also been the routine calls to the intelligence coordinators. Relatively speaking, however, we have received few responses and reports from the public—perhaps because the media didn't run news items but only announcements. Of the reports that did come in to the call centers, none provided any concrete information to forward the investigation—”

“Apart from the anonymous call that had us wandering around for half of Saturday, cleaning up the sand dunes,” Shrapstein interrupted again.

Eliyahu Ma'alul appeared confused, finding himself behind the curve of the conversation. “Which dunes?” he asked.

“I was just getting to that . . . okay, I'll cover it now,” Avraham pressed on. “The divisional call center received an anonymous tip Friday evening that the body of the missing boy could be found on the dunes behind the H300 building project. I had no way of confirming the information, but decided nonetheless to carry out limited searches in the area yesterday morning to rule out the possibility—and also to ease the slightest concern that the missing boy might have been there, alive but injured and unable to move himself, or even unconscious.”

“If there was such a concern, putting things off from Friday evening until Saturday morning sounds unreasonable,” Shrapstein commented.

“You're right, but nighttime searches require special equipment and budgets, and you all know how complicated that is,” Avraham said.

“It was a decision Avi took with my backing,” Ilana added.

“And do you feel you've ruled out that possibility entirely?” Ma'alul questioned.

Ma'alul's stern and quiet demeanor reminded Avraham of his father before the stroke. He was a short man, thin and dark skinned. His somewhat sunken eyes were large and patient, and his questions, which were always frank and never double-talk, encouraged the respondent to pour his heart out, even when simply asked, “How are you?” His decision to specialize in juvenile crime investigation, which he made some twenty-five years earlier, had stemmed from a sincere desire to help teenagers, whose direction in life could still be altered. At heart, he was more a social worker than a policeman, but Avraham viewed him as an investigator with whom it was a pleasure to work. No one ever called him brilliant, but he did his work thoroughly, modestly, and without a fuss.

“Not with absolute certainty,” Avraham replied to Ma'alul's question. “But I believe so. We did not do any digging with heavy machinery, but we covered the area well. We came across a few items of clothing, which the family confirmed as not belonging to the missing boy.”

Ma'alul nodded.

“And we didn't get anything from the public telephone from which the call to the police was placed, right?” Ilana asked.

“Nothing so far,” Avraham replied.

Avraham removed some papers from the investigation file. “I've made copies of the summaries of the interviews,” he said, handing them out. “Ilana has already seen them; they don't contain anything significant. The missing boy wasn't very active on the computer. He has a single e-mail address and very few contacts. Most of the mail he receives is advertising material, and his last message was sent out about a week or so ago. He doesn't have a Facebook page.”

“Porn sites? Dating sites? Gambling sites?” Shrapstein asked.

That same question had been asked in almost every investigation in recent years—as if surfing the Internet was the source of all crimes and the principal avenue for solving them.

“There seems to be some porn history on the computer, but nothing special,” Avraham said. “There's only one computer in the house—in the room the missing boy shares with his younger brother—and I don't think he had too many opportunities to look at pornographic material. I asked the IT Division people to check the history for travel sites, travel agencies, but they found nothing. Most of the Internet browsing history is related to computer games and gaming sites.

“The interviews with friends and family also failed to yield any real information that could give us a lead in the investigation,” he continued. “None of the people we questioned had any prior knowledge of the possibility that he might run away, and we are unaware of any history of emotional or behavioral disturbances. We do know that the missing youth ran away from home twice before, following arguments with the parents. He did so for only a few hours, but it may hint at the possibility of another attempt.

“The missing youth is coming to the end of eleventh grade at Kugel High School, and he's a pretty good student. He has been described as a quiet boy, not very popular, but no social issues either. There's no evidence of him suffering any abuse or harassment from other students. And I don't know if I mentioned it already, but we have no information linking him to any criminal activity.”

Avraham lifted his head from the papers and looked at Ilana. She sighed.

They had sat like this in her office for hours on end so many times over the past four years, since her appointment as head of the Tel Aviv District's Investigations and Intelligence Wing, poring over each and every detail, reading to each other from the transcripts of the interrogations, trying to understand first one way and then another, building fact upon fact in an effort to arrive at a hypothesis. If there was a place where investigations that appeared to be heading nowhere ultimately ended in success, it was there, in that very room, and thanks to such talks.

“In short, we don't have a lead,” Ma'alul commented.

“No,” Avraham replied, “although I believe we are dealing with an attempt to run away from home that may have gone wrong somehow—or, in the worst case, a suicide.”

“Why?” Ma'alul asked.

Avraham hesitated for a moment under the gaze of Ma'alul's soft, beautiful eyes. “Primarily because the missing youth has no criminal background and we have found nothing to link him to any criminal activity, but also in light of the information about him that we have collected. In addition, there is something about the family that I just can't put my finger on. He comes across as a boy with hardly any friends, extremely introverted, doesn't share things with his parents. From my experience, these are behavioral characteristics that can point to runaway attempts or suicide—unless you think differently.”

“It's possible,” Ma'alul responded, and Ilana asked, “And what do you mean when you say ‘may have gone wrong'?”

“That perhaps he planned to disappear for a day or a few hours, but got caught up in something unexpected,” Avraham replied. “I honestly don't know.”

“I disagree,” Shrapstein said.

Ilana and Ma'alul turned to look at him. “Why?” Ilana asked.

“Because I don't believe that a youth of— How old did you say he is? Fifteen? Sixteen?” Shrapstein said.

“Sixteen and a half,” Avraham responded.

“I don't believe that a sixteen-and-a-half-year-old teenager just disappears without leaving behind a trail that we'd be able to pick up on in three days of investigation—even if it wasn't the most comprehensive investigation in the world,” Shrapstein continued. “He must leave some trace. He has to draw out money before or after he disappears, doesn't he? And even if he did get caught up in something unexpected, what are the chances that we don't learn of it? And even if he wants to commit suicide without anyone's knowledge, he has to do it somehow, right? He has to steal a gun from someone, or pills from his parents' medicine cabinet, a knife from the kitchen, something or other. In general, people who kill themselves actually want to be found; that's what I've been taught.”

Ilana turned to look at Avraham, seemingly inviting him to respond to the challenge laid down by the young and “brilliant” inspector she had brought onto his team. “You can buy pills at a drugstore,” Avraham said.

“So what are you actually telling us—that he bought two boxes of headache tablets at a pharmacy without telling anyone, and then went and swallowed them on the dunes?” Shrapstein continued. “That doesn't make sense.”

The young officer looked over at Ilana and she nodded her head. “So you believe we are dealing with a crime?” she asked. “What kind of crime?”