The Butcher's Theater

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “You want to hold him hostage to use him? What is this—Beirut?”

  “We have sufficient—”

  “Let him go,” said the mayor. Suddenly his tone was waspish, his face hard as granite. He leaned forward and jabbed his cigar. Like a bayonet. A coin of ash fell on Daniel’s desk.

  “With all due respect—”

  “If you respect me, stop arguing and let the idiot go. I’ve talked to his boss in New York, chairman of the corporation that owns the wire service. They know his conduct was unprofessional, promise to keep his arrest under wraps, transfer him somewhere he can’t do any damage—not immediately, within a month or two. The appearance of capitulation must be avoided. But the deal’s only good if we release him immediately.”

  “In the meantime he writes.”

  “He writes, but his articles—all articles concerning the Butcher case—will be reviewed by the security censor.”

  “No one—not the locals or the foreigners—takes the censor seriously,” said Daniel. “They know we pride ourselves on being more democratic than the Americans. Everything gets through.”

  “His won’t. One month, then the bastard’s gone,” said the mayor. “We’ve tolerated worse.” Another layer of ash dropped. “Come on, Pakad, I need your pledge of cooperation, immediately. Wilbur’s boss—this chairman—is visiting Jerusalem next month. Prides himself on being some kind of amateur archaeologist. I’m meeting him at the airport with the official bread and salt, have arranged a tour of the Allbright Institute, the Rockefeller, some of the local digs. I’d appreciate it, Pakad, if everything goes smoothly.”

  “Please pass the ashtray,” said Daniel. He took it from the mayor’s padded hand, brushed the fallen ash into it, and wiped the desk with a tissue.

  “One hand washes the other, Pakad. All the little ants are happy. To you it probably smacks of immorality; to a realist, it’s mama’s milk.”

  “I’ll need permission from the prosecutor’s office to dismiss the charges,” said Daniel. “But I suppose that’s been taken care of.”

  “Such a detective.” The mayor smiled. He waved the cigar like a baton. “Stop looking so offended. That kind of self-righteousness is reserved for soldiers and pilgrims. And all soldiers and pilgrims ever did for this city was leave it in ruins.”

  “Sender Malkovsky,” said Daniel. “What kind of hand-washing led to that?”

  The mayor was unruffled. “One needs to take the long view, Pakad Sharavi. This city is a collection of little anthills, different color ants, little ant armies, each one thinking God or Allah or Jesus ordered it to devour the others. Think of it: all that potential for bloodshed. And for two thousand years that’s what we’ve had. Now we’ve got another chance, and the only way to keep things from spilling over is to maintain a balance. Pluralism. Every ant an emperor in his little hole. A balance your Butcher is threatening to upset.”

  “Malkovsky is no ant. He rapes children.”

  The mayor inhaled his cigar, brushed away the comment and the smoke. “From that perspective, Malkovsky can be viewed as a mistake. But in the larger scheme of things, it was no mistake at all. Let me tell you something, Pakad: The big conflict in Jerusalem isn’t going to be between Arab and Jew. We’ll be in charge for a long time. They’ll continue to kvetch, but it’s all for show. Down deep they enjoy everything we give them: the schools, the medical care. The Jordanians never did it for them; they know they never would. Arafat’s a paper hero, a member of the Husseini clan—the Arabs remember how the Husseinis confiscated their land and sold it cheap. So they’ll adapt, we’ll adapt—a status quo that will never be kissy-kissy, but we’ll get by.

  “The big problem is going to be between Jew and Jew—the black-coats and everyone else. They’re fanatics, don’t recognize the state, want to tear down everything we’ve fought for, turn it into another Iran run by Jewish ayatollahs. Think of it: no cinema, no cafés, no museums or concert halls, fanatics telling us to hang mezuzahs on every door and daven three times a day or be flogged in Zion Square. And they’re breeding heavily—nine, ten kids a family. Thousands of them emigrating from ghettos in America in order to build ghettos here. They huddle in their yeshivas all day, live off the dole—not one of them does a day of army service. Thousands of enemies of the state and future enemies—and dangerous because they’re repressed—sexually, emotionally. You know how violent they can get, the bus burnings we had every Saturday night in Mea She’arim. Even the soccer field we built them didn’t drain off all the aggression.”

  The mayor relit his cigar.

  “Violent,” he repeated. “Which is why the religious implications of the note didn’t sound all that implausible to me—those blackies are capable of doing violence to anyone who offends them. However, you inform me there’s no evidence of any particular group at work.”

  “Malkovsky,” Daniel reminded him.

  The mayor’s expression said the whole issue was trivial.

  “Malkovsky’s rebbe—the Prostnitzer—is a potential asset, someone definitely to be reckoned with. He’s a cousin of the Satmar rebbe, broke off from the Satmar three years ago because of some dispute about the line of succession. That, of course, is no big deal—they’re always fighting with each other. But as part of establishing his own identity, the Prostnitzer adopted a pro-state stance. Think of it: your basic ultrafanatic type—black hat, side curls, fur hats, leggings—and he’s coming out saying righteous Jews should support the state.”

  “Agudah’s been doing that for years.”

  “Agudah’s of no importance. All they want to do is build kosher hotels and get rich. This Prostnitzer is a man with stature. Charisma. When he tells his Hassidim the ’67 victory is a sign from Messiah, it carries weight.”

  “I never heard him say that,” said Daniel.

  “He’s said it in private, to me. He’s waiting for the right time to go public. The Malkovsky thing has pushed the date up a bit, but he’s made a commitment, requested only a few favors in return. Small favors, which I’m more than happy to grant him because the stakes are high. Exposing one of his followers as a pervert would only be destructive. Think of it: an inroad to the fanatics, a first wedge driven into their intransigent ranks. They’re followers by nature. Conformists. One begins; others follow suit; pretty soon you’ve introduced ambiguity into their belief system—creative tension. Lack of absolutes weakens fanaticism. The battle lines become obscured, strengthening the vitality of our pluralism.”

  “Ants crawling from hole to hole?” asked Daniel.

  The mayor looked at his watch and stood.

  “It’s late. I’ve spent too much time on theoreticals. I expect Mark Wilbur to be released immediately, with no further harassment. You’re obviously an intelligent fellow. If you wish to discuss ant holes further, feel free to call me at the office or at home—both numbers are listed. We’ll set up an evening, break out the schnapps, open a few philosophy books. But not yet. After you clear up this Butcher nonsense.”

  Alone, Daniel read the tour file. The university had provided lists of participants in nine field studies in the general vicinity of the murder cave, three expeditions a year for the past three years. Exploration had been going on since ’67, but older lists hadn’t turned up. (“D: You should see their files, what a mess,” Shmeltzer had noted. “Professors.”)

  The most recent trip had taken place last summer, a surface dig one and a half kilometers north of the cave, sponsored by the Department of Archaeology. The others were a pair of water-retention surveys conducted by Geology. Participants were faculty members, students, and visiting scholars. Only the names of the professors were listed, the same half-dozen over and over. Two were out of the country; Shmeltzer had interviewed the other four, three of them women, coming up with no leads and an incomplete list of student names gleaned from cluttered academic memories. The students were all Israelis, with the exception of one Nigerian who’d returned to Africa six months before the first murder. They had yet t
o be questioned.

  None of the private tour companies visited that part of the desert, which wasn’t surprising—nothing flashy down there. When the tourists asked for desert, they were shown the camel market in Beersheva, Masada, Ein Gedi, the Dead Sea mud spas.

  The Nature Conservancy had taken a single group of hikers into the area six months ago, a lecture tour on annual desert flora. The guide was a woman named Nurit Blau, now married to a member of Kibbutz Sa’ad. Shmeltzer had called her; she had a new baby, sounded fatigued, remembered nothing about the tour other than that a freak rain shower had ended it prematurely. No, none of the participants was memorable. Some of them might have been foreigners, she really didn’t remember—how could one be expected to remember that far back?

  A check at the Conservancy office turned up no names; reservation lists weren’t kept past the day of the hike. The lists were incomplete, anyway. Most hikers never bothered to reserve, simply showed up at a designated location the morning of the hike, paid cash, and tagged along.

  Sum total: skimpy. Besides, lists didn’t prove anything; anyone could take a walk in the desert. Still, procedure was procedure. It wasn’t as if they were deluged with leads. He’d have Cohen and the Chinaman interview the students, try to obtain the names of the missing ones, check them out too.

  At eight twenty-five he went down the hall, made a couple of turns, and ended up at the unlabeled locked door of Amos Harel’s office. He knocked, waited several moments for it to open, and found himself staring into the undercover man’s gray eyes.

  Harel held a smoldering Gauloise in one hand, a felt-tip pen in the other. He wore a T-shirt and jeans. The full white beard he’d worn on his last assignment was gone, revealing a pale, lean face, the jawline marred by shaving nicks.

  “Morning, Dani.”

  “Morning.”

  Harel didn’t invite him in, simply stood there waiting for him to speak. Though ten years Daniel’s senior and a rav pakad, he never pulled rank, just concentrated on the job. The toughest of the tough guys, though to look at him you’d never know it—the narrow shoulders, the bent back that housed three splinters of shrapnel, courtesy Anwar Sadat. He had an emotional barometer that never seemed to register and a bloodhound’s nose for subtle irregularities and suspicious parcels.

  “Morning, Amos. Is your man still watching Wilbur’s mailbox?”

  “He checked in two hours ago—nothing happening.”

  “Wilbur’s out of jail—string-pulling from way up. You may get a request to end the surveillance. Do me a favor and take your time about pulling out.”

  “String-pulling.” Harel frowned. “How much time do you need?”

  “A day or so, maybe a day and a half until I get one of my own men ready for it. Shouldn’t be any problem for you to conceal the delay.”

  “No,” said the Latam chief. “No problem at all.”

  Thanking him would have been superfluous; Daniel turned on his heel and walked away. Back in his own office, he phoned Shmeltzer at the Russian Compound jail, wanting to know the status of Mossad’s search for Red Amira Nasser. The older detective wasn’t at the lockup, and he considered contacting Mossad himself. But those guys were touchy about improvisation. Better to stick to the official liaison routine.

  “Connect me with Subinspector Lee,” he told the jail desk officer.

  A minute later the Chinaman came on and Daniel told him about his morning visitor.

  “Snoozy himself, huh? What’s he like?”

  “Charming. He sees the world in insect terms. Anyway, Yossi, if you have any more questions for Wilbur, ask them now. He’ll be walking soon.”

  “He already walked. Two tight-assed guys just slow-waltzed him out. Can I help Avi finish the papers? Kid’s sweating buckets.”

  “Sure. Get anything more from Wilbur?”

  “Not a thing. We fed him, gave him coffee. The guy broke down—not much substance to him at all. But all he gave us was bullshit. The last hour or so he did nothing but talk about his childhood. Seems he had a mean daddy, big-shot lawyer, wanted him to be a lawyer, too, never thought much of scribblers.” The Chinaman yawned into the phone.

  “Where’s Nahum?”

  “After he’d called Wilbur shmuck for the hundredth time, he stomped out—said something about interviewing students.”

  “Names from the university desert tour list. Try to reach him and help him with those interviews. Tell him, also, that I want an update on the Amira Nasser search. Take Cohen with you to speed things up but let him off by two. He’s replacing Latam on the mailbox watch. Tell him to go to Hamashbir, buy some new clothes—nothing fancy, something a kibbutznik would wear. Also, he has to shave off his beard, get a short haircut and nonprescription eyeglasses.”

  “Mistreatment of the troops,” laughed the Chinaman. “I’ll catch his tears in a bottle, save it as evidence for the Review Board. Listen, Aviva called—she’s got a morning off. Okay with you if I go home and get some breakfast?”

  Daniel thought about it. The student hikers could wait. “Get in touch with Nahum, first. Then all of you go have breakfast.”

  “Last-meal time for Cohen,” said the Chinaman, still chuckling.

  At eight-forty, Daniel called his own wife.

  “I love you,” he said. “Sorry I had to rush out. Guess who was waiting for me in my office?”

  “The Prime Minister?”

  “More powerful.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Very.”

  “Who, Daniel?”

  “The mayor.”

  “In your office?”

  “I opened the door, there he was, dozing away.”

  “I always thought that sleep stuff was for the benefit of the media.”

  “This morning it was for my benefit.”

  “What did he want?”

  “To have the American reporter released and check me out in the process.”

  “I’m sure he was favorably impressed.”

  “He’d be more impressed if I could solve the murders, which he sees as a civic nuisance.”

  Laura said nothing for a moment, then: “Pressure.”

  “Nothing unexpected.”

  “Listen, before I forget, Gene called about fifteen minutes ago, said he tried phoning you at the office but had trouble getting through.”

  “Is he at the Laromme?”

  “I think so. You know they’re due to leave this Sunday for Rome.”

  “Already?”

  “It’s been four weeks, honey.”

  Daniel sighed.

  “There’ll be other opportunities,” said Laura. “Luanne’s already talking about coming back next year. Anyway, they’re coming over for Shabbat dinner, tonight. Will you be able to make it home by three?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. There’s wine and pastries to pick up at Lieberman’s. The other woman in your life’s got a new dress she wants you to approve before she wears it.”

  “Tell her I love her. Tell all of them.”

  He phoned Gene at the Laromme.

  The black man picked up on the first ring, said, “I was hoping that was you. Been having a devil of a time getting through your switchboard. What is it, security?”

  “Bad lines, more likely. What’s new?”

  “McGuire phoned me with the computer data. I think I’ve got something juicy for you. Got a pen and paper?”

  “Now I do. Go ahead.”

  “They’ve got five hundred and eighty-seven unsolveds that fit into possible serial patterns. Two hundred and ninety-seven involve some use of knives. Out of those, the machine spat out ninety-one cases with wound patterns similar to yours over the last fifteen years—the data bank goes back longer than I thought, but stuff from the last five years is relatively sketchy.”

  “Ninety-one,” said Daniel, visualizing heaps of mutilated corpses.

  “Not that many, considering your wounds were darn-near generic,” said Gene. “But most of them differ fr
om yours in terms of mixed modus: knife and gun, knife and strangulation. And victim demographics: males, kids, old ladies, couples. In my opinion, that doesn’t eliminate them—some of these monsters get pretty indiscriminate about who they kill and how they do it. But there’s no use tackling something that huge. Thing to do is start breaking it down into subsets.”

  “Young females,” said Daniel.

  “Exactly. Fifty-eight in the seventeen- to twenty-seven-year-old range. By playing statistical games with it, the FBI broke that down into seven groupings that appear to be the work of the same killer or killers, though there’s overlap. The cutoffs aren’t perfectly clean. But when you plug in dark complexion, multiple blades, and drug OD, it narrows way down and starts to get real interesting: seven cases, none of them strangled, which in itself is unusual. One additional case that matches everything, except no mention is made of multiple blades. The first is an L.A. case: girl found cut up fourteen years ago, March 1971, in a cave—how do you like that?”

  “There are caves in Los Angeles?” asked Daniel, gripping the edge of his desk.

  “Plenty of them in the surrounding mountain areas. This particular one was in Griffith Park—big place just north of Hollywood, thousands of acres. There’s a zoo and a planetarium there, but mostly it’s wilderness.”

  “Was she killed in the cave?”

  “FBI says yes.”

  “What was the physical layout of the cave?”

  “They don’t have that kind of detail programmed yet. Hold on a second—there’s something else I want you to hear: Victim’s name was Lilah Shehadeh; she’s listed as a twenty-three-year-old female Caucasian, black hair, brown eyes. But Shehadeh’s an Arab name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Daniel, feeling the excitement grow within him. “Go on.”

  “Multiple stab wounds from several different weapons, death from exsanguination—poor gal bled to death. Heroin overdose to the point of general anesthesia, severed jugular, decimation of the genitals, no trace evidence other than residue of Ivory soap—sounds like she was washed.”

  “At the cave?”

  “Printout didn’t say that either. There are streams in Griffith Park—in March they could still be full from the rains. Let me see what else I’ve got . . . Shehadeh was an addict and prostitute. I racked my brains to see if I could remember her case but I couldn’t. I was working Southwest Division back then, clear across town. To be honest, a single hooker-cutting wouldn’t get much notice. I just got off the phone with a buddy in Hollywood Division, asked him to dig up the file, call me back and dictate the details.”