Asylum City: A Novel

by Liad Shoham

  They passed the two patrolmen posted at the entrance to the building and started up the stairs. The first minutes were critical. They had to seal off the area as hermetically as possible and try to freeze the crime scene so they could get a picture of it just as the perp had left it. It wouldn’t be long before the place was mobbed with the ambulance crew, the CSI team, the medical examiner, and, of course, the higher-ups: the chiefs of Major Crimes and Intelligence, the DC, the Region Commander. In the academy they taught you to leave the scene undisturbed, not to let anyone in, not even the Chief of Police himself. But in the real world? Well, that was something else entirely.

  Amnon, the officer in charge, was waiting for them at the door to the apartment. Anat guessed that one of the patrolmen downstairs had responded to the call.

  “CSI, the medical examiner, and the mobile lab are on their way,” he informed them. “And an ambulance. But you can see for yourself the paramedics won’t have much to do here.”

  A woman in her late twenties or early thirties was lying on the living-room floor. Her blue eyes were wide open. There was a large bruise—dark blue and swollen—under her left eye, and a long scratch on her right cheek. Four small blue marks showed on the left side of her neck, with a larger one on the right. Anat didn’t need the medical examiner to tell her that the victim had been strangled, that whoever did it used only one hand, and he was right-handed. The woman’s head was twisted backward at an awkward angle. Anat could see bruises on her arm through the sleeves of her thin white sweater.

  “Allow me to introduce you,” Amnon said. “Michal Poleg, thirty-two. She’s single like you, Nachmias. No record.”

  As usual, when Anat arrived on the scene the male officers became more interested in examining her than in examining the body. They were just waiting to see a twitch of revulsion or, even better, a tear. When she first made detective, she spent hours practicing her poker face in front of the mirror. She knew that the sights she’d be exposed to would turn a man’s stomach, too, but as a woman, she didn’t have the privilege of letting it show. By now she’d seen enough bodies in all sorts of disgusting conditions that she didn’t have to make an effort to keep her composure. She sometimes wondered what her family and friends would think if they could see how coolheaded she was around a corpse.

  “Imagine that,” Eyal said, “someone else your size.”

  Anat was used to the jokes about her height, too. She didn’t rise to the bait.

  The two detectives pulled on gloves and crouched down next to the body almost simultaneously. Just at that moment, the CSI team made their entrance.

  “Make sure to take pictures of everything and go over the room with a fine-tooth comb,” Anat said. They threw her a look of disdain. To be honest, she sounded ludicrous even to herself. David had impressed on her the importance of marking their territory by barking orders in all directions. “You have to piss in every corner so they know it’s your turf,” he’d instructed her over the phone in typically graphic language.

  “So what’re you thinking, Nachmias?” Eyal asked in a condescending tone.

  If it was anyone else, she would have said, “I don’t think there’s any point in questioning her,” but she held her tongue. Eyal had no sense of humor.

  “The marks on her neck indicate she was strangled. We have to find out if she was raped first, but I doubt it. It doesn’t look like her jeans were disturbed.”

  In an almost synchronous movement, they both felt the body to check for rigidity.

  “Less than twenty-four hours,” Anat said quickly before Eyal could ask her again what she thought.

  They rose and began surveying the scene. The room was filled with heavy, dark wood furniture. An elaborate chandelier hung from the ceiling. Anat opened one of the dresser drawers and was hit by the strong smell of moth balls. Inside were ironed white sheets with flowers embroidered around the edges, the sort of thing her grandmother would have.

  If she had to guess, she’d say Michal had inherited the apartment and everything in it. It didn’t seem to reflect the taste of a woman her age.

  One picture stood out among the framed tapestries on the walls: a delicate pencil sketch of the victim gazing into the horizon. Moving closer, Anat saw it was signed with the letter “G” alone. Books and newspapers were strewn on the floor and an empty beer bottle stood on a small side table next to the sofa. The coffee table was broken, the glass shattered. Wondering if Michal was the sort to sit on her couch drinking beer on her own, she looked around for another bottle or a glass, but she didn’t see any.

  “There was a struggle.” For some reason, Eyal felt the need to state the obvious.

  Anat strode to the door to check for signs of forced entry. There weren’t any. Michal Poleg knew her murderer.

  Something caught Anat’s eye. She brought her face close to the dark metal door. She missed it before when she came in and went straight for the body, but now she saw there were bloodstains on the outer side of the door.

  She gestured for one of the CSIs to take a sample. Eyal was watching her every move.

  “Find something?” he asked skeptically.

  “Blood,” Anat answered, taking care to sound as impassive as if she was talking about the weather.

  “Take a sample and send it to the lab,” Eyal directed the CSI, who nodded obediently. Anat wondered how he would have reacted if she’d said that.

  “You should talk to her next-door neighbor,” Amnon advised.

  Both detectives turned to him in surprise. Canvassing the neighbors wasn’t usually top priority, especially not in an area like this where it was less than likely that any of them would do a runner.

  “He witnessed the murder,” Amnon explained. “The patrolman told me.”

  “Okay. Make sure nobody messes with the scene and check every surface for prints,” Eyal commanded, making a quick exit. He seemed to be in a race with Anat to get to the apartment next door. The door was open. When they walked in they found a man in his seventies. His thinning hair was disheveled and the tail of his plaid shirt was sticking out of corduroy pants. He was standing in the middle of a living room very similar to the one they had just left, the same sort of dark heavy furniture, shouting at a patrolman who looked very happy to see them. A woman, presumably his wife, was sitting on a sofa covered in plastic, wiping her eyes and petting a brown-and-white Amstaff.

  “She ruined the neighborhood,” the man screamed. “I don’t have anything against them, but people should stay where they belong. It’s no good to mix with them. All you get is a lethal cocktail. I told her so, but did she listen? She didn’t give a damn, and now she got what she deserved.”

  “Don’t say that, Shmuel. She was a nice girl,” his wife cut in.

  “Nice? Her grandmother was a nice woman. This one? I don’t like to speak ill of the dead . . .” The expression on his face clearly said just the opposite.

  “Shmuel and Dvora Gonen,” the patrolmen informed them.

  The Amstaff jumped off the woman’s lap and padded to Anat. Automatically, she reached out to pet it. She loved dogs, especially big ones. If Eyal hadn’t been there, she would have asked the dog’s name. It helped people open up, made them feel more comfortable. But he would undoubtedly regard the question as unprofessional.

  “Chief Inspector Eyal Ben-Tuvim. This is Inspector Anat Nachmias,” Eyal said by way of introduction, stressing the difference in their ranks to make it clear who was in charge.

  Shmuel Gonen looked at her in surprise. When civilians envision a detective, they generally picture a man, certainly not a short, skinny woman with frizzy hair, freckles, and a wrinkled jacket.

  “Are you the one who called the police?” she asked in a businesslike tone, removing her hand from the dog. It’s best to start with short, informative questions.

  “Of course. With my own eyes, I saw the African . . .” Anat could tell he was revving up for another barrage, but Eyal nipped it in the bud.

  “Amnon,” he
shouted into the hallway.

  “I put out an APB, but there’s nothing yet. Looks like he got away,” Amnon yelled back.

  “Shit,” Eyal spat. Something in his expression changed. It was barely detectible, but Anat knew him well enough to notice it.

  “Okay, let’s start from the beginning and take it one step at a time,” she said to Shmuel Gonen in an effort to get things back on track.

  “I’ll be right back,” Eyal said, heading for the door.

  Anat wasn’t surprised.

  “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.

  Chapter 11

  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 neve
r 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.