Asylum City (7 page)

“Go on, I'm listening,” she said, looking directly at Shmuel Gonen to show him he had her undivided attention.

“You sure? Shouldn't we wait for your boss?”

“Go ahead, I'll fill him in,” she said encouragingly.

“So like I told the officer here, I was coming up the stairs when I heard shouting from her apartment,” Shmuel recited reluctantly.

“Who was shouting? Did you recognize Michal's voice?”

“Yes, that's what I said,” he snapped.

“It's very important, sir. You actually heard her shouting?” She repeated the question.

He looked at her as if she were too slow to understand a simple sentence.

“Go on, sir, I'm listening,” she said, calling on all her patience.

“He was on top of her, the black guy,” he continued.

Dvora Gonen let out a wail. The dog curled up at her feet.

“What do you mean ‘on top of her'?” Anat knew she needed a precise account. You don't solve cases with vague statements.

“His hands were around her neck. He was strangling her,” Shmuel said, thrusting out his two hands to demonstrate.

Anat was thankful for all the hours she'd spent practicing her poker face. What the neighbor was describing did not match what the body told them. “I realize it all happened very quickly, and this must be very hard for you, but it's important that you try to tell me what you saw as precisely as possible,” she said, giving him a chance to change his story.

“That's what I saw,” he insisted, raising both arms to demonstrate again.

“Okay, then.” There was no point in getting hung up on this detail, she decided. They'd check with the medical examiner first. “What happened next?”

“I yelled at him to leave her alone. He was shocked to see me there. Right away he jumped up and came toward me. I thought he was going to kill me. But I screamed as loud as I could. ‘Help, murder,' I screamed, and he got scared and ran away. Her body could have lain here . . . the guy was crazy.” Shmuel's face was flushed with agitation.

That was the cue for another sigh from Dvora. “God help us,” she moaned.

“Did you ever see him here before?” Anat asked them both.

“Yes, he was here,” Shmuel answered quickly. “It's not nice to speak ill of the dead, but she had a fondness for the black ones. All those illegals from Africa. She started her own absorption office right here in the building. I was afraid to leave my apartment. The guy who murdered her was here, too. I'm not a racist or anything, and just between us, they all look alike so it's hard to tell them apart. But I recognized him because of the scar on his face.”

“Where was the scar?” Anat hoped his memory of this detail was clearer.

“Like this, here,” he said drawing a jagged line down his cheek with his finger. “I could see right away that he was a thug.”

Anat glanced at her watch. It was a quarter to three in the afternoon.

“When did this happen?”

“Two and a half hours ago, more or less.”

That was also problematic. Of course, she'd have to wait for the autopsy, but in her estimation Michal Poleg had been dead for more than two and a half hours. Five or six was more like it, maybe even longer.

“Do you happen to know where she worked?” she asked.

“Where? At some aid organization for Africans, where else? She was one of those idiots who want to turn our country into a national home for the blacks, as if we don't have enough troubles of our own. The guy must have attacked her before she left for work.”

Eyal came back and gestured for her to follow him out into the hallway.

She had a feeling she knew what was coming.

“You can call David and tell him he won. I just spoke to my boss. The case is staying in the district,” he announced smugly.

“Really? What a surprise,” is what she wanted to say, but she just smiled politely and said, “I'll let him know.”

“Good luck,” Eyal called over his shoulder as he scampered down the stairs and fled the scene. She stood there watching him leave. The minute Shmuel Gonen uttered the word “African,” she knew Eyal would be out of here. There'd be a lot of press, all right, but not the good kind. There'd be pressure from the public, and the brass would demand results, and fast. And she'd have that slimy politician, Ehud Regev, on her back. Lately he was on television all the time, wagging his finger and warning against the illegal aliens and all the diseases and violence they brought with them. In every interview she'd seen, as soon as he got through ranting about the Africans, he started in on the cops. He held them accountable for the whole situation.

Everyone would want to know why it was taking them so long to catch the perp when they had an eye witness. Try explaining that if an African decides to disappear, it's almost impossible to find him.

YARIV
was sitting in his office staring at the e-mail he'd gotten from State Attorney Doron Aloni summoning him to a meeting on a private matter the day after tomorrow. It wasn't unusual for him to be called into Aloni's office, but it was generally to discuss a case, not a personal issue.

Ever since he'd been transferred to the illegal alien division, he'd been in Aloni's bad books. His boss didn't like his association with Ehud Regev. He'd tried to talk him around, but Aloni kept saying he had to choose sides. It wasn't a tough decision to make. Aloni was finished. He'd be gone within six months. Regev, on the other hand, was very well positioned in the Knesset. With his connections, he was on his way up.

What did Aloni want from him? Was it the fucking complaint Michal filed? Not likely. If that's what it was, he would have asked for his written response, not summoned him to a private meeting. He wasn't the first attorney to have a complaint filed against him. There were procedures for dealing with it.

No, something else was going on. Michal probably reported how he'd showed up at her house last night shouting drunken obscenities at her. She'd milk it for all it was worth just to get back at him.

What could he tell Aloni? What kind of excuse could he offer? After what he did, even Regev would have a hard time defending him. He might not even want to. Regev was obsessed with the illegals. He saw it as his mission in life. However much respect the politician might have for him, he could very well decide to withdraw his support from a man who couldn't control himself, a man who got plastered and then went and banged on a woman's door in the middle of the night, even if the woman in question was Michal Poleg. Ever since she'd demonstrated outside Regev's office, the mere mention of her name made him see red. But that might not be enough to save him.

WHEN
he got the legal opinion written by Dr. Yigal Shemesh from the Foreign Ministry, Yariv thought long and hard about what to do with it. If he took it to Aloni, he would tell him it was their duty as officers of the court to reveal its existence. But that would mean he'd lose all his cases. They could no longer employ the tactic of deporting Eritreans on the grounds that they were actually from Ethiopia. Yariv himself had come up with that idea, and he'd gotten a lot of pats on the back for it. So he took it to Regev, who told him to make it disappear. They couldn't listen to the bleeding hearts in the Foreign Ministry, he said. The future of the State of Israel was at stake. Yariv still hesitated. He wasn't driven by Regev's ideological convictions. Sometimes he got caught up in the politician's missionary zeal, but it never lasted long. He wasn't particularly fond of the migrants, but he didn't hate them, either. Mostly, he was just sick of them. He was grossed out by their wretched conditions, their despair aroused his contempt, and he didn't like the way they smelled. He wanted to move on and get away from these garbage cases as soon as possible so he could deal with things that really mattered.

In the end, he decided to keep Dr. Shemesh's legal opinion to himself. Michal was right. He not only hid it from the court, but he even continued to argue that the deportees were not in any danger.

The first time he saw Michal's complaint, he panicked. Was he wrong to put all his eggs in Regev's basket? Did he back the wrong horse when he hid the opinion? He knew Regev was a seasoned politician, the kind who made empty promises and told people what they wanted to hear. But when he thought about it calmly, he realized he didn't have anything to worry about. First of all, Michal didn't actually have the legal opinion. Somebody must have told her about it, but she hadn't gotten her hands on it. If she had, she would have attached it to her complaint. Without that piece of paper, what evidence did she have?

Secondly, Regev was right. Yariv wasn't obligated to make use of every opinion he was handed. The Foreign Ministry said one thing and the Ministry of the Interior said another. As a prosecutor, he was entitled to use his judgment. And don't forget that the illegals' petitions were filed against the Ministry of the Interior, not the Foreign Ministry. Michal treated the document like the Holy Grail. She was convinced it would force the government to stop deporting her Africans. She was so naive. Even if she got her hands on the missing legal opinion, Regev's people would produce a dozen others that said exactly the opposite, and Dr. Yigal Shemesh would find himself out of a job. The government wanted them deported. No piece of paper was going to prevent that from happening.

HIS
cell phone rang. Inbar. He decided not to take the call. He wasn't ready to tell her what happened. Not yet. Even if she didn't get hysterical when he explained that he'd gotten smashed and wound up outside his ex-girlfriend's house, she'd be horrified by the thought that his bruises wouldn't clear up in time for the wedding and his nose would be swollen in all the pictures. It wouldn't matter how hard he tried to assure her it would be fine by then. It was better to wait until she got back and deal with her face-to-face. Ever since they set a date, every second of her time had been spent planning the event. Everything had to be perfect, and expensive, of course. She went on and on about appetizers, Swarovski crystal, table settings, flower arrangements, play lists, and all sorts of other items. Half the time he had no idea what she was talking about, and he wasn't particularly interested in finding out.

Yariv finished checking his e-mail and idly surfed the news on the Internet to calm his nerves. Everything will work out in the end. You always land on your feet, he told himself in an effort to lift his spirits. Some people were born lucky, and you're one of them. He could say he wasn't there, that she made it all up because she was distraught with grief over the death of her African lover. Who was she anyway? Nothing but an anonymous volunteer in an organization no one had ever heard of. He could count on Regev to have a field day with the “bleeding heart leftist” who had turned her back on her country and its “fine lads.”

Yariv was scrolling down to an article about a new spray that claimed to enhance virility when he stopped suddenly and began scrolling back up the page. His head started pounding again, harder than ever. He recognized the building in the photograph under the headline, “Woman in Her 30s Found Dead in Her Tel Aviv Apartment.”

BOAZ
Yavin was sitting in the living room rocking Sagie in his arms, praying for him to fall asleep quickly. “Your turn,” Irit had said, poking him in the ribs with her elbow when the baby woke up for the umpteenth time.

He looked at his watch. Two thirty in the morning. He was exhausted. The past few nights he'd hardly gotten any sleep. “His teeth are coming in. He'll sleep better soon,” Irit had assured him as she shoved him out of bed. Despite his crankiness, he kept his thoughts to himself and refrained from reminding her what she'd said when they were debating whether to have another child. “The third kid takes care of itself,” she'd insisted.

The room was lit only by the flickering blue light of the television. Yawning, Boaz turned his attention to the repeat broadcast of the evening news as he continued stroking Sagie's head. Suddenly, his hand froze.

He recognized the face of the woman filling the screen. It was the girl who'd screamed at him near the old bus station just a few days ago, before Faro's thugs dragged her away.

It was cold in the house, but he found himself sweating. His eyes were glued to the TV, which now showed cops and paramedics outside an apartment building. He turned up the volume just a bit, not wanting to wake Irit. He kept hearing the word “murder,” and it was making his head spin.

He'd called Itzik to tell him about the girl and was told to get out of there fast. He was glad to cut his visit short. He hated the place. With any luck, after this incident they wouldn't make him do the rounds there anymore. It didn't happen that way. Itzik was furious, but a lot of money changed hands on those “rounds,” and he had no intention of canceling them because of some interfering woman.

On the screen, a young policewoman was talking. “At this point, we're looking into every possibility, following every lead,” she said somberly.

Did it have anything to do with what happened at the old bus station? Sagie started whimpering again. Boaz rocked him distractedly, keeping his eyes on the TV in an effort to learn as much about the murder as he could.

He had no one to blame but himself and his own greed. He was working at an accounting firm when they caught him using privileged information to play the stock market. That was right after Shira was born, and he and Irit were having a hard time making ends meet. It was in the firm's interest to keep it quiet. They agreed not to go to the police if he returned the money. All of a sudden he had a huge debt, two kids, and no job. He was too ashamed to tell Irit. His whole world had collapsed; he was a broken man.

But then, in his darkest moment, someone came to his rescue, just like in a fairy tale. A week after he lost his job, Itzik, one of the firm's clients, proposed that he work for him privately. He was impressed by the way Boaz handled his account, he claimed, and he didn't want to lose him just because he had left his previous place of employment.