"I understand. And how did Shirley fit into the picture?"
"Shirley was brought in because of the new VAT reporting regulations."
"Yes, I've heard about that."
"I asked for her help with everything related to approving invoices for payment, once the pressure was off her."
"I understand. Are there unpleasant situations with suppliers or employees?"
"None at all with the employees. Once in a while, an employee receives a friendly reprimand for being late approving an invoice, but nothing more."
"And with the suppliers?"
"That’s something else entirely. Most of the suppliers accept a slight delay in payment, but there are those who can be difficult to handle."
"Tell me more."
"There are those who yell and threaten us, others pester us on the phone dozens of times a day. There have even been some who shame us on social media."
"Are there suppliers whose threats sound violent, or who threaten to use violence?"
"I don't recall anything like that. After all, we’re a reputable company. We don't do business with criminals."
"If I understand you correctly, the person who received most of those unpleasant calls over the last few months was Shirley?"
"Right."
"Were you aware of any calls involving threats?"
"No. She always informed me when she had a relatively unusual call. I'm sure that if someone were to threaten her with violence, she’d have informed me, as well as the more senior staff."
"I'd appreciate a list of all the suppliers with whom there have been payment problems recently."
"No problem," she said and wrote down a memo for herself in an open notebook beside her.
"You said you weren’t particularly close."
"That’s right."
"Did you ever have lunch together?"
"Rarely. I hardly ever eat lunch here. I leave early to eat with my kids." She pointed at a cork notice board covered with pictures of her with her family.
"Do you know anyone did she have lunch with?"
"She had a good girlfriend from the main secretariat, and I know they used to eat together a lot. Shai clung to them like a leech."
"What do you mean?"
Sigal smiled. "Shai was hooked on Shirley. He took advantage of any opportunity to be in her company."
"Didn't he know she was engaged to be married?"
"I assume so, but let's just say, he’s a somewhat peculiar guy."
This explained the large picture above Shai's workstation, I noted to myself, and chuckled at Sigal, like a partner in office gossip. "Where did they used to eat?"
"There's a dining hall on the third floor, but not many employees eat there. The food won’t be getting a Michelin star any time soon, if you know what I mean."
We smiled at each other and she continued. "That's why the employees tend to bring food from home, or get takeouts from local places. They rarely eat out. It simply takes too long."
"Did they bring in food from the Zelda Café sometimes?"
"Yes. It's quite a popular place."
"Did you eat there?"
"Sure. I’ve eaten there several times. Nice place. I hope they manage to get the business running again."
"I also hope so, too," I said and took my leave from her.
Shai Hakim was waiting for me in the small conference room. His leg was swaying jerkily under the desk. He looked tense.
"It’ll be very difficult for me to answer questions without my computer," he said before I had even had a chance to sit down opposite him. I recalled that he was thinking that he had been summoned for an audit.
“I don't think you'll need a computer," I smiled and examined him. The description that came to my mind was "old-school nerd." He had greasy hair parted on the side, and wore old-fashioned glasses with particularly thick lenses. There were two pens in the pocket of his well-pressed shirt. I could not help peeking at his feet. His closed sandals did not surprise me. He was rather a good-looking man, but he managed to conceal it very well.
"I'm not from Income Tax or VAT," I told him. "I'm from the Israel Police."
"Is it about Shirley's murder? It's about time!"
This was an unexpected reaction.
"You're the first person I’ve spoken with from the company who sounds like he expects Shirley's death to be investigated," I said.
"Really?" he wondered. "I was sure you'd be here right after the murder. To my knowledge, it's a part of the interrogation procedure."
"You're right, and here I am. I understand you worked with Shirley."
"True," he said, his voice trembling.
"What can you tell me about her?"
He lowered his head. When he raised it, I noticed that his eyes were glistening.
"Shirley was -" He choked up. He closed his eyes in an attempt to hold back his tears, but they had a will of their own. "Shirley was the most amazing girl I ever met in my life."
There was a stack of napkins on the desk, probably left over from the refreshments from a meeting. I brought the stack closer to him. He pulled one out and wiped the wet lenses of his glasses.
"I understand she was very dear to you."
"Very much so. I loved her."
"You knew she was engaged?"
"Yes, I knew. But now she's not engaged to anyone," he said in an odd voice.
I felt a shudder go down my spine. "I want to know if I understand you right. Did you love her in a romantic sense?"
"I loved her in every possible sense. I don't really have a lot of experience with girls. I’m rather awkward on dates, certainly when I really like a girl."
"You didn’t go out on a date with Shirley, did you? But you worked with her very closely, as I understand."
"Yes," he said wistfully. "They brought her in to help me because of the new VAT regulations."
"I know, it’s been explained to me already," I hurried to say. Shai seemed to me like the type of person who would burst into a long and tiring lecture on Value Added Tax regulations and their implementation. "Let's move on. What can you tell me about your work with Shirley? Why did you love her so much?
"She wasn’t like other girls," he said, biting his lip and rolling his eyes. "She was beautiful and gentle on the inside as much as on the outside. Sometimes, female interns from public accounting firms come here dressed in their tailored suits, and when they ask me questions I can see they don't understand anything. Many public accountants are unfamiliar with the work of the bookkeepers and don't understand it. But they patronize me because I’m 'just' a bookkeeper." He almost spat out the word "just" and marked imaginary quotes with his hands.
"And Shirley?"
"Shirley was also studying to be a CPA, but she treated me with respect. She even said that she’d learned more from me than she had from her tutors at the university. She learned fast and had an excellent understanding of the work."
"Was that why you loved her that much?"
"I held her in high esteem professionally, but I loved the person she was. She understood me better than any other person, except for my mother, maybe. She was the first girl in my life I could talk to about almost any subject in the world. She knew how to listen and give excellent advice."
"And what did she feel toward you, in your opinion?"
"I know it was mutual."
"How can you be so sure?"
"A couple of months ago, my mother called me at my workstation. I wasn't there and Shirley picked it up. When Shirley heard it was my mother, she told her she was working with me, and that she had a wonderful, smart son. When I spoke with my mother later and she told me about it, she said Shirley must be in love with me. I explained to her that she was only a good friend and she was already engaged."
"How did you cope with the fact that she was engaged to someone else?"
"It was hard, I admit. I’d found the love of my life, a girl I could open up to and speak with freely, and the thought that she was goin
g to marry another guy - who wasn’t right for her at all, in my opinion - was driving me crazy! But after the conversation with my mother, I got up some courage. I waited one evening when she was staying late to make up time. When there was almost nobody left on the floor and we could talk intimately, I confessed my love to her."
"How did she react?"
"She stuttered and apologized and explained that I was very important to her and very dear, but she was engaged, so it couldn’t happen. I felt she was just making excuses and it wasn’t what she was really feeling. I’m no expert on relationships, but I heard how Yoni, her fiancée, talked to her and saw how he was treating her."
"How was he treating her?"
"He was a medical student. His time was more important than hers. She always had to be considerate of him because, supposedly, what he was studying was more important. After all, he was going to save lives. She was breaking her back studying and working and supporting both of them."
"It doesn't sound to me like an unusual attitude. It even makes sense. I don’t suppose his studies left him time to work."
"I’m not saying otherwise, but it was his overall attitude. I saw how he offended her. He talked to her disrespectfully more than once."
"I still don't understand how you got it from her that your feelings were mutual."
"After my confession, she became very distant. It was hard for her to speak with me. I was embarrassed, too. I regretted destroying everything, because I needed her in any form or manner and her distance made it difficult. However, one evening, about a week after my confession, Yoni treated her badly again. It was her cousin's birthday party and he notified her almost at the last minute that he wouldn’t be able to come, because he preferred to spend time with a friend of his who was over from London for a few days. Shirley was very hurt because she’d organized the party and had taken care that the date would fit his busy schedule. She wanted him so much to attend the party. When their conversation turned nasty, she went to an empty office down the hall to talk privately. I went over there and saw she was completely shattered. I couldn’t leave her like that, so I went in and hugged her. She returned my hug, then she kissed me. I swear to you… I didn’t dream it, or just hope it would happen. It was the sweetest moment in my life…"
"Shirley kissed you?" I asked, almost shouting. "On the lips?" I tried to be precise.
"Yes, a real kiss." A note of longing was woven in his voice.
"And?"
"I was very excited. I began to cry and Shirley was crying anyway. I told her right away that I loved her, but she was very confused. She said she had to think about the entire situation. Then she didn’t come to work for several days. I called her and she didn't pick up, only texted me asking not to call because she needed time to think. It was a nightmare for me, but it was worth it. When she returned to the office, she accepted it."
"Explain, please," I said, making a great effort to conceal my astonishment about the odd development in his convoluted story.
"She said she realized she loved me too, and that she couldn’t continue living in an unequal relationship that lacked so much respect."
"When was that?"
"A little over a month ago."
"But her family didn’t know about her decision to leave Yoni. Right?"
"Right. This was one of Shirley's great qualities. She always knew how to put others before herself. She didn’t want to bother Yoni during such a critical exam period, so she planned on telling him at the end of his school year."
"Which means, then, that Yoni had no idea Shirley was about to leave him."
"To the best of my knowledge, no."
CHAPTER 17
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
"Then our Shirley had a secret," said Alon. "To be fair, I must admit that this investigation keeps on springing surprises."
"Yes," I smiled. "It's definitely unusual. The problem is, I find it hard to understand how this little secret’s even connected to the fact that she was the target of the hit."
"Have we never seen cases before of cheated partners who decided to settle the accounts?"
"No… But Yoni didn’t know about the secret affair."
"That’s what Shai thinks. Maybe Yoni found out about the affair and decided to settle the account. According to what you're telling me, he wasn't someone who’d just move on when people don't dance to his tune. You said it’s been difficult to set up a meeting with him for questioning. Wouldn't you expect a supportive partner to run to the police and help as much as he could?"
"There's something in what you say…"
"I wouldn't rule out Mr. Shai himself, too."
"Shai? What's his connection? What interest would he have in killing the woman who, according to him, he loved dearly and was about to become his partner?"
"Let's not jump to conclusions. You said he was a little peculiar. We can't rule out entirely the possibility that the secret affair was the product of his feverish imagination. Maybe he realized the girl would never be his. Didn't he say something about how she wasn't engaged to anybody anymore?"
"Right," I said and recalled how this sentence had made me shiver when I heard it.
"Then maybe he decided that she shouldn’t belong to anybody. And if suspicion could be thrown onto Shirley's fiancé along the way, then he’d also take his revenge on his avowed rival."
"Sorry, but this sounds delusional."
"You said the guy was weird, so I'm looking for delusional stories to fit him." Alon winked at me.
I laughed and got up. I had a lot of material to go over.
"When's the fiancé coming in for questioning?"
"He said he’d be here this evening."
"In the evening?"
"He has an exam. He’s a medical student."
Alon picked up his cell and checked something. "I can't be here this evening. Update me right after you're finished."
"Sure."
Was the secret affair the product of Shai's feverish imagination? The thought reverberated in my mind.
I looked at the picture that Shirley's parents had provided to the media. Shirley was good-looking and well-educated, an outstanding student with a bright future ahead of her. It was easier to associate her with a medical student than with a dull bookkeeper. However, I was precisely the one, more than anybody else, who should know that external features do not have to be the determining factor when it comes to love. Yinon had been attracted to me even though I had never bothered to cultivate my appearance. He, in contrast, closely monitored his nutrition, physical activity and clothing. Each time my mother had reprimanded me for my atrocious appearance, claiming I should invest more effort in keeping a man like Yinon, he would take me in his arms and hug me warmly, stressing that he had been madly attracted to my brain. What was it in Shai Hakim that had possibly made Shirley fall in love with him, and want to leave Yoni, the brilliant medical student, for him?
Diving into the police and government databases for two hours revealed to me a very different man from the one I had met. Shai Hakim was thirty-four, and had a graduate degree in history and a teaching certificate. He had started teaching at a High School in Central Israel, but did not succeed in passing his probationary year, so was never accepted fully into the education system. He had worked in bookkeeping throughout his studies, so when he left teaching, he returned to the field that had financed his studies.
Shai did not have a Facebook page, so it was a little hard to find out details about his personal life and his hobbies. However, I found his name and picture on two websites associated with running marathons. With each passing moment, the secret affair of Shai and Shirley seemed to me more feasible. Shirley may have succeeded in seeing the athletic, sensitive and educated man hiding under the guise of a nerdy bookkeeper. I was eager to hear Yoni's side of the story, but there were still several hours before our meeting. So I left everything and went out for lunch.
When I returned, there was a message waiting for me, with the
list of suppliers I had asked Sigal to send me. She wrote that, to the best of her memory, those were the problematic suppliers, and that if she recalled any more, she would send them.
The list was amazingly organized and included just over thirty names of suppliers and contacts. Sigal indicated in the comments the reason for each supplier's inclusion in the list. There were those who had argued regularly over the terms of payment, and there were others who had initiated one-time confrontations because of a misunderstanding or a business dispute. It wasn't a long list, but thirty names meant thirty wearying interrogations. If the person who had ordered the hit had been one of the suppliers, why would he choose to strike at the lowest ranking person in the organization? Why not strike at one of the directors? Maybe it was a warning shot and the company directors knew well that they were next in line?
I skimmed the names on the list. I did not recognize any of them. Apparently, big companies did not enter into petty squabbles over payment terms. When I looked more thoroughly, a name caught my eye: L. Z. Engineering Services, Ltd. I entered the company's name in the database, and when its details appeared, I realized why the name was familiar. Zvika Leibovitz was the owner of a consulting mechanical engineering firm. His employees usually worked on the customer's premises rather than the company's office. One of the employees, by the name of Yinon, had worked for Zvika for five years before going to work for one of Zvika's customers.
I dialed Yinon's number without thinking too much.
"Hi," he said in a whisper. "I’m in a meeting… wait just a second."
"It's alright, I can call later," I suggested, but he probably was not listening. I heard a jumble of talk in the background and Yinon's voice, apologizing.
"How are you?" he asked excitedly when his surroundings were finally quiet.
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