The Missing File (25 page)

“Where was your husband?”

“In the bathroom.” She saw a light through the small glass pane in the bathroom door. Some noise came from there, maybe the water flowing. But that's not how it happened.

“So what did you do inside the apartment? Describe it to me. What was the first thing that you did? Where did you go?”

“I knocked on the bathroom door and asked Rafael how he was feeling.”

“And then? Did he stay in the bathroom? Did you find Ofer by yourself?”

“No, Rafael came out. He had vomited.” The bathroom door opened and she saw her husband. Could she tell right away from the look on his face that something was wrong? But that's not how it happened. She had been in the apartment with him, the whole time. Avraham had no doubt at all.

They both went silent.

He could still stop the interrogation, leave the room, and ask Ilana to take over.

“How did you discover Ofer?” he asked.

“Rafael told me something happened to Ofer. He took me to his room,” she said.

“You're sure that Ofer was in his room?”

“Yes. He was lying on the floor.”

“Was he bleeding?”

“No. There was no blood. He was lying on the floor, and there was no blood at all.”

H
e could have stopped there. Ilana had authorized him to do so. The fact that there was a disparity between the two versions of events with regard to the room in which Ofer had been found was of no significance at this stage in the investigation. But he could no longer suppress the rage building up inside him over the lies she had told for the past three weeks. Only later that night, when writing up the summary report of the investigation, did he understand what it was that he wanted her to tell him, and why she had refused to tell him that, even with all the facts laid out before them.

“According to your husband's confession, Ofer was not in his room,” he insisted, and she said again, “That's how I remember it.”

“Your husband said he was in Danit's room.”

It was the only room in the apartment he hadn't gone into, hadn't even considered entering, and it had always remained shut when he was there. That's why he could not open its door in his imagination, either.

“When I arrived, he was in his room.” There was no hesitation in her voice. Only hatred.

“Hannah, do you know what Ofer was doing in Danit's room?” he asked, and she answered quietly, “He wasn't there, I told you.”

“That's not what your husband said.”

She didn't answer. Her eyes were shielded from him.

“Was that the first time you found Ofer in Danit's room?”

She wouldn't have answered, even if he had asked a thousand times. He should have stopped asking.

“Hannah, I'm asking you if that was the first time you found Ofer there.”

She didn't hear his questions anymore.

At the tips of his fingers he felt that he was about to pounce on her, like before. “Don't you realize I'm going to ask you the same question over and over and over again until you answer me?” he yelled. “Tell me how long it had been going on for. How many times did Ofer hurt Danit? When did he start abusing her?”

He didn't want to know, so why did he not relent?

“Don't you understand that you have to talk to me if you want to help your children? You have a daughter that needs looking after.”

Now she heard him and she turned her face toward him. With contempt. She said, “Don't tell me how to look after my children. I would never hurt my children—no matter who asks me to do it,” and he said, “Your husband told us that he returned home and found Ofer in Danit's room. Ofer didn't hear him come in. You know what he was doing in her room, don't you?”

Also later, that night, when he watched the recording of the interrogation in his office and prepared to write up the report, he was unable to read his own face for a sign of what he had wanted her to say.

“Don't tell me how to look after my children. I won't let anyone hurt them,” she repeated.

The recording was coming to an end. And the investigation too. Perhaps by the following day he wouldn't recall a thing from the past three weeks. Their exchanges became rapid and urgent.

“What did your husband tell you?”

“He didn't say anything. There was a fight between him and Ofer.”

“And what was the fight about?”

“He didn't say.”

“And you expect me to believe that you didn't ask?”

“I don't expect anything. Would it help Ofer if I asked?”

“And then what happened?”

“When?”

“When your husband and Ofer fought. What happened during the fight?”

“Rafael pushed him against the wall and Ofer hit his head and fell. It was an accident. It was in Ofer's room.”

“And how did you react to what he told you?”

“How do you think I reacted to it?”

The video showed him about to lose his nerve.

“I don't know how you reacted. I'm looking at you sitting here now, lying to me, and I don't know. You haven't stopped lying to me. For three weeks now, you haven't said a single truthful word about your son. I'm struggling to understand just what kind of a mother you are. I'm asking you to tell me how your son died, and you aren't able to. I'm asking you to look at him, to look at your son—and you aren't capable of doing that, even now that he is dead.”

She didn't respond.

And he finally relented.

“So what did you do?” he asked, drained of all strength, and she muttered, “What could I do?”

“What did you do with Ofer when you found him dead in Danit's room? Or in his, whichever you like.”

“What did I do? I hugged him. That's it. What else was there to do?”

S
hrapstein wanted “five minutes with the mother” to root out of her whatever needed to be rooted out. “There's no way she wasn't home at the time. I don't buy that story about her returning home after him,” he said. They all knew he was right.

Ilana was hesitant and asked Avraham for his thoughts on the matter. He said, “Do whatever you think is right, Ilana. It makes no difference to me.”

She decided to suspend the interrogations. “Let's give them a few hours, or days, to digest it all,” she said. “They haven't been lying only to us all this time; they've been lying to themselves too. It'll be easier for them to talk in a few days. And even if we are right and the mother was there, I'm not sure what to do with that. I'm not certain it would add anything to our case if we recommend pressing charges against her.”

Shrapstein objected. “She's no less guilty than her husband, and she played a more active role in concealing it,” he said, but Ilana was adamant. “The final decision will come from the state prosecutor,” she said, summing up the discussion.

At 4:00 p.m. a representative from welfare services showed up. Just as Avraham was beginning to update her on the case, Ilana entered his office without knocking. The two women knew each other and Ilana addressed her as Etti. She was in her fifties and her hair was graying, just like Ilana's.

“Both parents will remain in custody, so something has to be done about the children,” he said. “It appears that the sister, who has a handicap, was assaulted.”

“By whom?” Etti asked.

He was slow to answer and Ilana spoke in his stead. “By her brother, the boy who was killed,” she said. “It appears the father caught him in the act and a violent struggle broke out between them.”

Avraham hadn't had a cigarette in hours.

Etti asked if the children had any other family, and Ilana replied, “A grandfather and grandmother,” and he interjected, “The daughter and mother are very close. I don't think the mother will willingly let anyone but herself look after the girl.” That morning, through the window of the same police car he was about to use to bring the mother in for questioning, he had seen them waiting together on the sidewalk for Danit's ride to school. Hannah Sharabi hadn't let go of her daughter's hand for even a moment.

“And will the mother be remaining in custody too?” the social worker asked.

“Yes, at least overnight,” Ilana replied.

“Was she involved in what happened to her son?”

“We don't know yet to what extent,” Ilana said. “She was certainly involved in concealing the matter. They've given statements that exonerate her, hoping, probably, that she'll be able to stay with the children.”

The door opened and Ma'alul informed them that Danit had arrived at the station.

Ilana and Etti hurried out of the office. Avraham didn't know if he should go with them. He stopped at the doorway. A young woman, presumably a staff member from the school Danit attended, was escorting the tall teenager. Danit allowed the young woman to lead her through the reception area, among the policemen, who froze in their tracks. Her steps were small and cautious.

Ilana asked for the conference room to be vacated and Avraham then watched as she entered the interrogation room in which Hannah Sharabi was waiting, emerged with the mother, and escorted her to the room into which her daughter had been taken. Ilana remained outside, closing the door behind the mother. Through the closed door and the walls, he heard Hannah Sharabi break down into bitter tears for the first time.

Thirty minutes later, Etti and the young woman escorted Danit out of the station. He didn't know where they were going.

I
t was around 11:00 p.m. when Avraham finally found the time to sit down and write the summary report for the remand hearing. He took hold of the blue pen, and within seconds his fingers were stained with ink—just like always. Aside from himself and Shrapstein, there was almost no one at the station. Ilana had gone home earlier in the evening. Ma'alul too.

The first words were easy to write. He summarized the circumstances of opening the case. But he soon reached the point at which he needed to describe the interrogation that had started that morning and found he was stuck. He went into Shrapstein's room and said, “I think it's going to take me a while,” and Shrapstein asked, “Then maybe I'll go home and take a look at it in the morning?”

There was no reason for him not to.

The nights were still pleasant, not too humid. The lights from the mall, the municipal library, and the museum instilled life in the dark. Avraham smoked one last cigarette. The building on Histadrut Street wasn't visible from the station, although it was close by. It lay hidden behind the sandy lots, between other apartment buildings where all the windows and shutters were already closed. They would open again in the morning.

Avraham returned to his office.

He was supposed to describe in dry, simple sentences how Rafael Sharabi arrived home early and found Ofer in his sister's room. He had to describe how the father lost his self-control, pulled the boy off his sister, hit him, and slammed him against the wall; how Ofer's head smashed against the wall and how he fell, lifeless, to the floor. He was supposed to write that, a few hours later, the father folded his son's body into a large suitcase, and that in the early hours of the morning, he dragged the suitcase down the dark stairs of the building and put it into the trunk of his car. According to his confession, his wife wanted to inform the police right away, but he warned her not to do so. He forced her to go to the station the following day and report their son missing. She didn't want to do it, but she feared her husband. The father covered up what he had done out of fear of his expected punishment, and also because he feared for the fate of his family without him. He was supposed to describe how, the following night, more than twelve hours after the cargo ship he was on left Ashdod Port, Rafael Sharabi threw the suitcase containing the body of his son overboard far out at sea. Far away from any shore. And that when he returned to Israel, his wife again pleaded with him to tell the police what happened, but he insisted they say nothing about it. They realized later that Ofer's bag had been forgotten in his room, and the father stuffed a few books inside and threw it into the Dumpster. He was supposed to write that the search for Ofer out at sea would continue in keeping with financial considerations, unless the suitcase with his body washed up onshore beforehand.

But he could not write a word. His pen dropped.

The file lay open in front of him, and Ze'ev Avni's handwriting in black ink caught his eye from among the pile of documents. Suddenly, he picked up the pen and began writing:

Dear Dad and Mom,

I'm writing to you so you don't worry about me. I want you to know I've arrived safely.

Despite everything that happened, I'm well. I'm now in Koper, a small and pretty provincial city. I think you'd like it here, Dad, because of the beautiful port. I've decided to stay here for now, but who knows, perhaps I'll be back one day.

I'm sorry about everything.

Yours,

Ofer

Avraham had no one to send the letter to.

He crumpled the page and slipped it into his pocket so that no one would find it.

16

H
e replied to Marianka's e-mail early Saturday morning, from home. He told her the investigation had ended and that Ofer was dead. If and how a search for his body would continue remained unclear. The Cypriot, Turkish, and Greek authorities had been asked to notify the police in Israel in the event that a suitcase containing the body of a dead boy washed ashore or was found out at sea by local fishermen. He added no details because he had decided not to discuss anything that happened with anyone.

Her reply came after thirty minutes. Marianka expressed her condolences and asked how he was. She ended her short message with the words “
Sometimes prayers don't help.
” He responded immediately, writing her that he was not well and that he was planning to take a vacation to get over it all. How was she doing? he asked. This time she answered several hours later, at night, and he read her message at 6:30 the following morning, Sunday, shortly after he woke up. She told him that she and Guillaume had broken up and that she too was going through a rough time. Their shifts together in the traffic police were not making the split any easier. She was also planning a vacation. Not sure if he was writing it just out of politeness, he invited her to spend her holiday in Israel and promised to pay her back for the tour of Brussels. It was 5:30 a.m. in Belgium but she wrote back immediately, one sentence, “
Are you serious?
” and he answered with one word.

Yes.

Reports about the case and its resolution appeared in the newspapers on Sunday, the same day that Rafael Sharabi appeared in court for a remand hearing ahead of his indictment. Ofer's death came under the headline
FAMILY TRAGEDY IN HOLON
. No details were given of the circumstances leading up to the violent confrontation and the teenager's ensuing death, as the court had imposed a gag order covering most of the details of the investigation owing to the involvement of minors; meanwhile, anyone familiar with the case knew why the press was treading relatively lightly with regard to a father who had killed his own son. Rafael Sharabi's lawyers claimed he was a devoted father, that the tragedy had destroyed him, and one report said that the state prosecutor was considering dropping the charges for obstruction of justice and likely would not oppose a light sentence. Very little was written about Ofer, as if he had been forgotten or had gone missing again.

Avraham rejected offers from the press office to give TV and radio interviews, and for the two days during which the media followed the story, Shrapstein appeared on three television news shows and several morning radio programs. He was asked about “the complicated investigation, the details of which remain under a gag order,” and smiled knowingly at the mention of “sophisticated investigative tactics that led to solving the case.” He too expressed compassion for the father's plight, and in response to a question from one of the interviewers said that Rafael Sharabi had expressed heartfelt remorse for concealing the tragedy. When asked to describe his feelings about the resolution of the case, Shrapstein repeated the same line in all the interviews: “It was undoubtedly one of my most difficult moments as an Israel Police investigator . . . but that's our job.”

On Sunday evening, just after Channel 10 aired a short report on the “Holon tragedy,” Avraham's phone rang. He knew who was on the line before lifting the receiver.

His mother was agitated. “Are you watching the news?” she asked, and he said, “No. Why?” lowering the sound coming from the television set.

“You took part in the case of the teenager who was murdered by his father, didn't you? I just saw the report on TV, but they didn't mention you. I'm sure I've seen that father before. I think he uses the same jogging path I do.”

Avraham confirmed that he had been involved in the investigation. He couldn't deny it because his parents had heard about his brief television appearance when Ofer was still a missing-persons case.

“I'm telling you, I felt right from the beginning that the father must have done something to him. I don't know why, I just had a feeling. Did you interrogate the father yourself?”

He said he hadn't.

“And do you know that officer, Shrapstein? He was interviewed for the report. Do you work with him? He's a very impressive young man.”

“He is impressive,” Avraham responded, and she asked, “Do you know how old he is? Is he married?”

H
is meeting with Ilana was scheduled for Monday morning. He arrived late and she welcomed him warmly.

“I was waiting for you,” she said. She was wearing a purple dress that didn't suit her and that he hadn't seen before.

They always met for a postmortem after a big case, generally in her office, but sometimes at a restaurant, for lunch or dinner. They would drink a toast, analyze the investigation process, and look for errors to avoid in future cases. They both knew that was not going to happen this time. There had been too many errors, and there was no cause to celebrate.

Why did it seem to him that their relationship would never go back to the way it was before the case? Ilana had stood by him, and may even have prevented him from making graver mistakes than the ones he had. She had also supported his decision not to participate in the reconstruction. He couldn't go back to the apartment. Something deep inside him simply refused to open the door to Danit's room, from which the mother had shut him out. Shrapstein had taken Rafael Sharabi to the building on Histadrut Street—late Thursday night so as to avoid prying eyes, as much as possible—and had watched as the father shoved Ma'alul, in the role of Ofer, against the wall. Because a long time had passed, they didn't find any signs of the struggle or remains of the violent confrontation that happened there. Rafael Sharabi pushed Ma'alul against a pink wall partly covered by a dresser with toys, and afterward he pushed him against a second wall, a white one. When Ilana described the reconstruction, Avraham suddenly recalled the statement made by Ze'ev Avni's wife on the first day of the investigation. They were sitting in the kitchen of the Avni apartment and she was holding their son in her arms. She remembered hearing an argument or fight from the apartment above and was almost sure it had been on Tuesday evening. He hadn't ignored her statement; he had tried to confirm it with other neighbors, but without success. And yet it had all been there in front of him.

“When does your vacation begin?” Ilana asked, and he said, “Maybe on Monday. I haven't given a definite date yet.”

“And when do you get back?”

“I haven't decided how much time to take off.” There were thoughts he was not ready to share with her.

He liked her office, the photograph of Lions Gate Bridge and the familiar faces in the other pictures, the window that was opened only for him and that had often breathed life into him. But he didn't want it to be his home anymore.

Ilana suggested that he refrain from taking on any other cases before beginning his vacation and he nodded.

“Why do you think this case was so difficult for you?” she suddenly asked.

“It was difficult for everyone, wasn't it?” he replied, trying to avoid the question, but she said, “Yes, it was, but for you in particular.”

The question troubled him too, and he had no answer. Perhaps it was the geographic proximity, or maybe the feeling of having lost control.

“I think it's a sense of guilt,” she said. “You felt guilty toward Ofer and his parents from the start, and it prevented you from seeing what was really happening there. And in the end—well, you know how it ended.”

But he didn't feel that he knew. And he believed Ilana was wrong in thinking that guilt was the problem. He didn't want to continue speaking about himself and asked if the state prosecutor had made a decision regarding Hannah Sharabi. It turned out that she had been released. A decision regarding an indictment against her, if there was to be one at all, had yet to be made. The children had been returned to their mother for now. Ilana told him that Ma'alul's inquiries with the friends Ofer's parents had met the evening of the tragedy indicated that Hannah Sharabi had indeed returned home after her husband and not with him, just as she had said. Nevertheless, there was still no proof that she was not in the apartment at the time Ofer was killed.

None of that interested him anymore.

He didn't have any words, and a part of their meeting passed in silence.

“Are you going away?” Ilana asked, and he said, “Where would I go? I'll stay at home. Maybe I'll finally clean the place up.”

A
vraham was unable to get hold of the IT Division when he returned to the station. Someone there needed to take down Ofer's photograph from the police website's missing-persons page. The thin boy with the hint of a black mustache looked at him from the computer screen. The other missing people stared at him from their small images too. Some had been there for a long time. There were teenagers, boys and girls, who were last seen in 2008, 1996, 1994. He clicked on one of the thumbnails. Full name: Michael Lutenko. Gender: Male. Born: 1980. Native language: Russian. Other languages: Hebrew. Height: 5'8". Nose shape: Medium. Build: Slight. Skin: Light. Glasses: None. Residence: Ramat Gan. Last seen in: Ramat Gan. Date of disappearance: 23 June 1997.

There was a soft knock on the door. Lital Levy, the policewoman who had called on his birthday to tell him about the anonymous call regarding Ofer, walked in, saying, “Someone left this for you.” She handed him a brown envelope with black letters addressed
To Inspector Avi Avraham
.

“Is he still here?” he asked, quickly getting up from his chair, and she said no. She still managed to ask if he wanted to have lunch with her, but Avraham had already rushed out of the station. Ze'ev Avni was gone.

He read the letter while sitting on the stairs outside, smoking a cigarette.

Dear Inspector Avraham,

A letter from me must surely come as a surprise to you. To be honest, I never imagined writing to you until I saw the newspaper reports about Ofer and realized that I, too, need closure. This period in my life will undoubtedly remain with me forever, but I would like to move on, just as you will move on. More than anything, I'd like to meet and speak with you—not at the police station, but somewhere more pleasant and friendly—and to continue, or rather to begin, the conversation I had hoped to have with you and wasn't able to, but because that isn't very practical (is it?), I have resorted instead to writing you a letter, a symbolic (or ironic, some would say) act, of course, in light of the circumstances surrounding our acquaintanceship.

First, it's important that you know that I have yet to come to terms with what I did, even after finding out (more or less—I admit that not everything is clear to me) just how central a role I played in exposing Ofer's parents—and perhaps particularly for that very reason. Obviously, Rafael Sharabi must pay for his crime; I wouldn't want it any other way, but I do have a problem with the fact that I played a part in the trap you laid for him (am I correct in my assumptions?). In retrospect, I would have liked to have refused your “generous offer,” or, more precisely, to have been the kind of person who could do that. Regrettably, I am not that man yet. When I agonize over the cowardice that led me to accept your “offer,” I try to convince myself that I had no choice—because of both my wife and my son—and I also tell myself that I am now in possession of compromising information about the police. We are almost in equal positions now, don't you think? You know things about me that I wouldn't want others to know, and I know something about you that you wouldn't want revealed (this is not a threat).

The second thing I wanted to say is that I was deeply disappointed with our meeting. (I hope you are capable of appreciating my frankness.) When we first met, I felt that we could share a true dialogue; apparently I misjudged you. From the first moment you misunderstood me and my intentions, you were quick to judge me, and you turned all I told you about my close relationship with Ofer into suspicions against me—so much so that it is difficult even now to think about my intimate friendship with Ofer without doubting my intentions. And for that, I cannot easily forgive you. In the end, you exploited my faith in you and my appreciation for you to achieve your own objectives. (By the way, have you already been promoted or received a commendation following your “success”?)

There's one more thing I need to write—more to myself than to you—and it has to do with the act of writing. What I had begun I shall not continue, do not worry about that, although today I understand the true power of the letters I wrote. In fact, without my knowing anything (do you believe me now?), those letters contained the truth—the literary truth and the factual truth—long before all of you found out. Maybe that's what people mean when they speak about inspiration. I feel a certain sense of satisfaction (also a shiver) when I think about Ofer's parents reading his letters, with the accusations he dared to make at them, while concealing their guilt from everyone. This encourages me not to stop writing, despite all the attempts to intimidate me (others' too, not only yours). I don't yet know what I will write, but I know it will happen—and not too far down the line, either. Who knows, maybe a book about police investigators? My son, Elie, has reached the age at which he enjoys listening to the stories I make up for him—even if he doesn't understand everything—and maybe children's literature is the right direction for me.

Shall we part as friends?

Ze'ev Avni

P.S. If, by chance, you come looking for me, you probably won't find me at the same address in a few weeks. We plan to move, although no one in our building knows of my involvement (and I'd like it to stay that way). It's not the kind of place in which we want to raise Elie, and I wanted to move, anyway.