Hill of Secrets: An Israeli Jewish mystery novel

by Michal Hartstein

  Shimon asked to speak with his wife in private. About three minutes later they came back into the room with two additional chairs.

  "Yes, we're ready for questioning," Aviva said.

  "There's an extra chair here." They looked at me, not understanding.

  "The questioning is one-on-one," I explained, and took the recording device out of my bag.

  "You're recording us?"

  "Despite the circumstances, you must realize this is a police investigation."

  "We understand," Shimon said to prevent his wife from initiating another pointless argument.

  Aviva wanted to be first, so Shimon went back to the guests and grievers in the living room.

  "Tell me a little bit about your daughter."

  "Since you knew her way back in high school, you probably remember that she was always a very good girl. The prettiest, the smartest, the most popular."

  Yes, I remember…

  "She was actually a year younger than you, since she skipped a grade. When she was in the first grade, she just already knew how to read and write, so her teacher thought there was no reason for her to be bored. Nowadays, a lot of kids know how to read and write in kindergarten, but back then Hanni was different." She wet her mouth and went on.

  "She was generally a special child, everyone loved her so much."

  Of course, I didn't correct her mistake.

  "After high school, she did a year of civil service and then started law school. She was on the Dean's list every year and all of the firms chased her to intern for them."

  "When did she meet Meir?"

  "They met years before they started dating. You must know what it's like with teenagers in Bnei Akivah—everyone knows everyone. I think they first met when she was still in high school."

  "And nothing happened?"

  "No, as far as I know."

  "So when did they become a couple?"

  "In Hanni's final year of university, she met up with Meir, who was just starting to study economics. Since they knew one another, they started talking and then dating."

  "How long was it they were married?"

  "It took them about a year and a half."

  "Which is a while in your circles."

  "Don't forget Hanni was very young—she skipped a grade." Aviva didn't miss a single opportunity to mention this.

  And also did only one year of civil service, I thought to myself.

  "They weren't in any rush," Aviva continued. "Also, Meir had just started studying and Hanni was very busy with her internship and the bar exams."

  "When did they get married?"

  "December 28th 2000." Aviva closed her eyes and fondly reminisced. "It was an amazing weddin—the seventh candle of Chanuka, at the Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel-Aviv."

  "Sounds very impressive."

  "It was amazing." She blew her nose.

  "What kind a couple were Meir and Hanni?"

  "They were an amazing couple."

  "They didn't have any crisis during the first year? The second year?"

  "Not at all," she answered decisively. "Everything was just fine. Hanni received her license two or three months before they were married and at first she was the breadwinner, until Meir finished his degree and started working at the bank. A little while after he started working at the bank, Ariel, their eldest was born."

  "And Hanni continued to work?"

  "Yes, his salary wasn't enough to sustain a family, so she continued to work."

  "She didn't go on working because she wanted to fulfil herself career wise?"

  "You can have a career when you're forty," Aviva snorted in disdain. "Hanni already had a degree. She knew what's important and what needs to be done."

  What needs to be done, I thought to myself. I wondered if Hanni really wanted to have kids instead of a career. Was she really willing to put off her self-fulfillment until she was forty?

  "What do you mean, she knew? Was someone pressuring her?"

  "Not at all, no." Aviva disregarded me with a wave of the hand. "It completely came from her; she wanted to raise children without the troubles of work and only when Meir got the job in that startup…" Aviva was trying to remember the name.

  "Fiberlight?"

  "Yes, at Fiberlight, as far as I remember, I didn't concern myself with his job too much. He got an excellent job with a salary that matched his skills and allowed Hanni to stop working. She was pregnant for the second time and it was just right in all respects."

  "And what happened when he was fired from Fiberlight?"

  "He wasn't fired," Aviva corrected me, careful not to tarnish the son-in-law who had murdered her daughter and grandchildren three days earlier. "The company fell apart."

  "And wasn't it difficult for them? Still, a family of four with no income."

  "I wasn't worried for them. If he managed to get that job at Feriblight—"

  "Fiberlight."

  "Whatever the name was. Meir could find a job that was just as good and they had enough savings from when he was working. He also got excellent compensation."

  "How do you know?"

  "My daughter told me everything."

  Apparently not everything, if one morning her husband gets up and kills her and her children, I thought to myself.

  "But in the end, he didn't find another executive position, but returned to his old job at the bank.”

  "Right."

  Aviva made a disappointed face. "In my opinion, he didn't look hard enough—maybe he hoped he would get some offers and when a few months passed and he didn't get any big offer, he just went back to work at the bank."

  "I understand you weren't happy with that choice?"

  "Not really." Aviva tried to scrape an imaginary stain off the table that stood beside us. "He was able to get much more, position wise and salary wise."

  "And now they had two children."

  "Right."

  "And he was still the sole provider?"

  "Yes."

  "But in the past, that hadn’t been enough to raise one child."

  "First of all, he wasn't a junior bank clerk anymore; the bank took into consideration the seniority that he had accumulated. Besides, Hanni always believed it was just a matter of time before he got a new executive position."

  "And how did they manage? Financially, I mean—a couple with two kids but half the salary?"

  "It wasn't half the salary," Aviva waved me off again with the same dismissive flick of the wrist.

  "Frankly, it was even less than half the salary."

  "Really?" She was surprised.

  "Yes."

  "Listen, they managed, cut back a little…" I thought about the big car and the vacation abroad “…and, also… " Aviva paused, uncertain whether to share, but realizing this wasn't the place to hide, " …they also got some help from their parents." Aviva made an embarrassed face, "There’s no shame in it; a lot of couples get help from their parents occasionally."

  "So you assisted them financially?"

  "As much as we could. We live a pretty good life, but we're pensioners."

  "And Meir's parents?"

  "Meir's parents are very wealthy people; I assume they helped a little more."

  "Hanni didn't share this with you?"

  "No."

  I felt there was no point of continuing the conversation at that point, so I told here she can call Shimon in. I had the feeling that she wasn't telling the whole truth, but I decided not to push her to a corner. The woman was still sitting Shiva for her daughter and three grandchildren. Like many other people, Aviva was in denial. Her daughter was the most perfect and her son-in-law was the most talented and they all lived happily ever after until the moment Meir decided to kill them all.

  I always hated this hypocrisy. I didn't understand why it was important to people to hide the flaws, the mistakes, the pain and put up a false front that everything's okay. I learned in my job that, even in the hardest moments, people will hide things and lie—even if there�
�s no good reason to do so, except for the will not to be seen as a failure by others. The most interesting and pleasant people I'd ever met were those that never tried to embellish their reality. My sister, Shira, was like that. Yinon, too. I, also, always tried to be honest with myself and not cover up and try to embellish reality, not to myself and certainly not to others.

  The door of the room was hesitantly opened and I jumped in alarm.

  "Oh, I didn't mean to frighten you," Shimon said softly.

  "No, it's okay." I smiled and gestured to him to sit in the chair across from me. "What can you tell me about your son-in -aw?"

  "He was a good guy."

  "Was there something in his behavior that could be an indication for such an insane act?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Sudden rage, verbal or physical abuse, threats of any kind?"

  "Not at all." Shimon shook his head. "If anything, the opposite."

  "The opposite?"

  "He was a very quiet guy." I thought of all the serial killers that were outstanding citizens on the outside.

  "There weren’t any signs of distressing behavior?"

  "Not that I noticed."

  "Obsessive behavior?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Like and obsession for cleanliness, quiet, order?"

  "No."

  "Excuse my forward question, but do you know of any infidelity or disloyalty by either one of them?"

  "I've already heard these vicious rumors." Some internet sites had published assumptions that little Noa was not Meir's daughter. "And I'm telling you there’s no chance." He sounded very convincing.

  "How can you be sure?"

  "I know my daughter."

  "So maybe it was Meir?"

  "Say Meir had something on the side—what reason in the world would he have to kill his wife and kids because of it and then kill himself?"

  He was right.

  "Can you make an assumption why Meir did what he did?"

  "I really can't, believe me, it's killing me."

  "Maybe money issues?"

  "They had problems with money?"

  "I understood from Aviva that you helped them out."

  "No more than we help our other children."

  "And still, Meir had a very good job and he was forced to transfer to a far less rewarding job."

  "Still, it was a job with a handsome salary, as far as I know."

  "So you don't think there was an economic factor here?"

  "It's hard for me to believe, after all, you know who Meir's parents are."

  "I haven't met them yet."

  "Meir's father is a very successful food importer and his mother is the daughter of a very wealthy family. She has dozens of real estate properties in Tel-Aviv and Haifa. I can't imagine a situation where their son would want for anything."

  *

  I decided that I should meet Meir's parents as soon as possible. I said goodbye to Shimon and Aviva and promised to update them when things became a bit clearer.

  I wanted to call Riki at the station to get the Danilowitz family's phone number. I left my cell phone in the car and discovered I had fifteen missed calls from my mother. If this wasn't my mother, I'd fear something terrible happened in my family.

  "Where are you?" My mother shoots the second she answers the call.

  "Working."

  "Then why aren't you with your phone?"

  "I left it in the car."

  "What do you have a mobile phone for? If there's an emergency, you can't be reached.”

  "There's an emergency?"

  "Sort of." (This meant, “No.”)

  “Where are you?"

  "On the way to work."

  "Physically, where are you now?"

  "Ramat Gan."

  "Great." She breathed a sigh of relief. "Can you go to our house and see that I switched the iron off? I'm with your father on the way to Be'er Sheva. He has a sitting there at the income tax department, so I decided to go with him to visit Aunt Henia from Tkuma. She's in hospital in Soroka. You remember, she had her surgery a week ago—"

  "Okay," I cut her off. I didn't have time to hear Aunt Henia's complete medical history. "I'll send you a text message after I check."

  "But go now, it's very dangerous."

  "Okay, okay," I answered impatiently and made a U-turn to get to my parents' house.

  Lately, I'd been getting quite a few of these calls and texts from my mother. If I wasn't worried about her I'd be annoyed with her constantly rushing me to her house to check that the gas/oven/iron/boiler is shut off. They always were.

  She never did this to my sisters, because they had kids. Evyatar got the calls sometimes, mostly when I was unavailable.

  The iron was, of course, disconnected. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out a box of cubed watermelon. How simple to buy a watermelon, cut it up and put it in the fridge. How come I never do that?

  I sat down in the study and stared at the library. The room was surprisingly similar to the study at the Levin house, where I had sat a few minutes earlier. I stared at the holy books and the different albums. Suddenly my photo album from high school caught my eye. I began leafing through it and saw that most of the pictures were of me with my Convent friends. I looked at the image of sixteen-year-old me. I hadn't changed much. Apart from the religious-girl clothes and the zits, I’d stayed exactly the same. Not only externally.

  Toward the end of the album, I stopped and froze. There was a picture there of Hanni and me, standing side by side in the high school graduation ceremony. The only reason that brought fate to put us in the same picture together was the fact that we had similar last names and were called after one another to receive our diplomas. Maybe Hanni's mother also had this picture in which Hanni is smiling with a wide grin and I'm standing next to her with a forced smile. Maybe she’d also perused her daughter's albums, as many grieving families do, and saw this picture and felt a tinge of sadness. Two girls graduated high school side by side, and fifteen years later one was investigating the murder of the other one. I felt sorry for her.

  I took the picture and closed the album, even more determined to find out what happened to Hanni.

  I remembered that I hadn't yet called Riki to get the Danilowitz family's phone number. Meir's sister picked up the phone and called her father.

  "Natan Danilowitz?" I asked carefully.

  "Who's asking?"

  "Hadas Levinger from the central unit, Israel Police."

  "Hello, Hadas," he said and loudly moaned.

  "Hello, Sir, first of all, allow me to express my condolences for your tremendous loss."

  "Thank you."

  "I was just with your in-laws, asking them some questions. I wanted to know if I could possibly come to see you as well."

  "Could it wait until after the Shiva?" His voice was shaking. I didn't know if he was angry or sad.

  "It's your choice."

  "Then we'd rather leave it until Monday."

  "When do you want me to come?"

  "We can come to you," he answered courteously and surprised me. I’d sensed he was angry, but now I realized he was just deep in his grief.

  I thought for a moment. I’d prefer to see the Danilowitz's home. "I'll come to you."

  "We finish the Shiva on Monday, so you can come Monday afternoon."

  "No problem." I hung up quickly. It was difficult for him, and I didn't want to pester a person in such deep grief.

  Chapter 8

  The whole way to the station, I thought about the conversations I had earlier with Hanni's parents. I had pretty good intuition about people. Hanni's mother seemed as if she had something to hide, while her father was open and matter of fact.

  I still didn't have a lead as to Meir's horrible motive, if it really was him. I got the impression that the couple were having financial problems that pushed Meir to the edge. It wouldn't be the first time a person committed suicide because of financial pressures. To kill off your entire famil
y as well because of financial pressures is a bit more unusual, though not something that has never happened.

  But since Meir's parents were very wealthy, my line of thought began to quaver. I'm not a mother, but I assumed that a parent would do anything for their children, even when they're adults. It was hard for me to believe that Meir's parents allowed him to fall upon hard times.

  I don't know if there were infidelities in their marriage, but DNA samples had proven Meir's paternity of all of the children.

  What could be the story here? By the way Hanni's body was placed, there were no signs of struggle, meaning this wasn't a fight that got out of control, though they may have fought earlier and Meir couldn't calm down.

  I got to the office, and on the desk waiting for me were the Danilowitz's bank statements, printouts of data that I had requested from the Office of Internal Affairs and the Income Tax Department, and all of the numbers called in the last six months from all of the landlines and cellular phones belonging to the couple.

  According to the bank statements, Hanni and Meir were up to their neck in debt: accounts with 150,000 shekels overdraft, loans as high as 600,000 shekels, and a mortgage of 1,400,000 shekels.

  Assuming the worth of the apartment they were living in was about a million and a half shekels, even if they sold their apartment to cover their debt, they would still be left with a negative balance. There was good reason to talk to the branch manager and understand the issue of their debt.

  I looked over the analysis of the printout of their phone calls. The landline in their house was hardly ever used. Most of the calls were made using their cellular phones, and specifically by Hanni's cell phone. Most of the calls were to the number belonging to Hanni's mother. After this were many calls to the number of a user called Iris Green, as well as calls to Meir's number. Meir's cell phone wasn't as active as Hanni's; most of his calls were to Hanni.

  I called Iris Green's number and was asked to type in a secret code. She was probably out of the country.

  *

  "You have people here to be interrogated," Riki informed me on the phone; I went to the reception desk.

  A young religious man accompanied by his pretty wife were there waiting for me, also the neighbors from the apartment above. Riki had contacted some friends and neighbors from the building and the neighboring building. Some had been questioned immediately after the bodies were discovered. I sat with each of them separately in the interrogation room. Amazingly, none of the neighbors heard the gunshots. The killer made sure to shut all of the house windows tight and wrapped the gun with a piece of mineral wool to dull the sound of the gunshot.