Hill of Secrets: An Israeli Jewish mystery novel

by Michal Hartstein

  Mineral wool is a material used for insulation used mainly by building contractors. The fact that Meir, allegedly, equipped himself with a piece of mineral wool raised the assumption that the murder was premeditated. The friends and neighbors testified that Hanni and Meir were the model family. Hanni was very involved in the community life of the neighborhood, Meir and the kids came to synagogue every Shabbat and participated in many of the events organized by the synagogue committee. Their shock at this story was evident in their faces.

  At eight o’ clock, after hours of the same questions and answers, I took a short coffee break, and when I returned, the last neighbor of the day was waiting for me.

  She was Orit Sagiv, the neighbor from the next building whose apartment overlooked the balcony of the Danilowitz apartment. She sat with her legs crossed on the interrogation chair, her top leg moving impatiently, holding a plastic cup of water given to her by Riki.

  "Hello," I said and quickly sat down. "Sorry about the delay. I had to breathe for a minute. I've been interrogating for hours."

  Orit rolled her eyes. I saw my excuses didn't especially interest her, but, like most civilians, she chose not to yell at me, and in a police station no less.

  I explained to her that the conversation between us was to be recorded and asked her to state, for protocol, her identifying details.

  "My name is Orit Sagiv, thirty-eight, from Givaat Shmuel."

  "Where do you work?"

  "For Teva."

  "How do you know the Danilowitz family?"

  "I've known Meir since he was a kid." She surprised me. I’d thought she was just a neighbor.

  "How exactly?"

  "His sister, Michal, is a childhood friend of mine from Petach Tikva."

  "And what can you tell me about Meir?"

  "Not too much. He was a cute kid. As a teenager, he was quite popular. He was very good-looking and his family's pretty rich, so he stood out at Bnei Akivah."

  "Do you remember an aggressive or violent boy?"

  "Not really, but I have to admit I didn't know him. Michal was my friend in high school and then we parted ways. I met her accidentally a few years ago, just when Meir and Hanni moved across from us. She came to a housewarming and told me that her brother was moving in right across from me."

  "Do you remember when this was?"

  "Chanuka of 2003."

  "How do you remember?"

  "I was pregnant with my third daughter. Hanni was also pregnant with her second."

  "So you were on maternity leave together."

  Orit snorted in contempt. "Hanni didn't need maternity leave, she didn't work."

  "So you raised your daughters together?" I corrected myself.

  "Not really. We never really gelled."

  "Why?"

  "Listen," she sipped the last drop of water from the plastic cup, "I'm an honest person, and I don't like hypocrisy or falseness. I can tell you that just now my sister-in-law, my husband's sister, left her home and husband for another man. There’s no normal person who isn't shocked by a young woman taking two little girls and wrecking their home, but I just told her to her face what everyone’s thinking and too afraid to say. Hanni wasn't my sister-in-law and I really didn't care for her and her family, so she never heard what I think about her, but I think she saw that I can't really stand her."

  "How did she see that?"

  "I didn't initiate any social relationship with them, even though I actually knew her husband from childhood."

  "Did she have many social connections?"

  "She was pretty popular in the neighborhood."

  "What does popular mean?"

  "She’d sit a lot in the coffee shops in the mall, or gossip with moms in the park while her kids were going wild."

  "Her kids were wild?"

  "Mostly the big one—he had no boundaries."

  "And was the little girl friends with your daughter?"

  "They were in the same kindergarten, really a sweet girl, it's a shame."

  "Then why couldn't you stand her?"

  "Put it this way...” She took a deep breath and continued. "Whatever I think of Sharon, my sister-in-law, I think even she was a better mother than Hanni."

  "But Hanni was a full-time mom."

  "Even worse. My sister-in-law, for example, is a lawyer, and she still finds the time to devote to her girls. Hanni sat at home all day, or in cafés to be exact. I don't think I'm perfect, but once I get home, I'm fully with my kids, or at least I try to be. Any working mom knows how difficult it is to juggle everything, and sometimes it's impossible. I, personally, work mainly because of the money, also for interest. But if I worked only, maybe, part time, which is impossible in my field — if I didn't work, like Hanni, for instance, I don't know if I'd leave my kids in afternoon daycare. If all my mornings were free I'd use them to do errands and socializing so I'd have all the time in the world with the kids."

  "And Hanni wasn't like that?"

  "I don't think so. I'd often see her walking around in the mall in the afternoon, and when she was with her children she didn't seem too attentive to them. I'll never forget how—about two years ago—my daughter and her daughter played together in the sand box in the playground. I sat near them and watched them and she was sitting at the other end of the playground chatting with her friends, not even bothered. How can you sit like that, not even knowing where your three-year-old is? It drove me crazy. At some point I wanted to go home and I didn't want to leave the little girl by herself so I took her to her mother. She saw that I was stunned by her and immediately attacked me, saying she didn't ask me to babysit. I asked her how she could let such a small child play unattended and she yelled at me that I couldn't educate her and teach her how to be a mother."

  "What else do you remember about her?"

  "The playground… in September or October. In August of the same year we went for a vacation, to a country house in the north with friends. I don't remember the name of the place, but it was very nice, if a bit simple. In the afternoon we sat on the lawn and had a barbecue with our friends. It was very quiet and nice until we suddenly heard shouting from one of the houses nearby. A woman was yelling—screaming, really—at her husband."

  "What?" I was curious.

  "Something along the lines of, 'What kind of a dump did you bring us to? The one time I ask you to take care of something and we end up in this dump!' The man was trying to calm her down and tell her this was what he was able to get in their price range. It was a site that included a number of country houses—some of them made of wood which were newer and some made of stone which were quite old. The whole site wasn't very luxurious, but in August everything is insanely expensive and it was a vacation for the kids, so it was more important to us that there would be a lawn, a pool and nearby attractions than a fancy room.

  The woman went on screaming and then Meir came out of their cabin and walked towards Reception. He came back a few minutes later and we understood that he tried to switch to a fancier one but they were all booked. A few minutes later, Meir, Hanni, and both their kids came out of the cabin in bathing suits, and only then did Hanni notice me. I think she was embarrassed because she realized that we’d heard her; she walked away quickly and didn't stop near us."

  "Did you ever hear her shout like that at home, in Givaat Shmuel?”

  "Not as clearly as in the cabin—they always kept their windows shut, as if they were trying to keep all of the shouting inside. I heard her numerous times, reprimanding and yelling, at her husband and at the kids, but because the windows were shut, I couldn't clearly hear what the yelling was about."

  "Can you tell me how it's possible that none of the other neighbors heard the shouting you're describing?"

  "I’ve no idea. You have to understand that our study overlooks their balcony directly, so I guess I had the best spot. When we were in the country, there were no other people from the neighborhood there and the windows were also open, unlike their house."

&
nbsp; She went silent. I sensed she had something else to tell.

  "Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

  "Uh…" she began stuttering, "I'm not sure… I could really be wrong."

  "Tell me what you think you know. My job is to check the facts."

  "When we were in the North, I think I also heard her hit her son. I don't know if it was a one-time thing or something that happened regularly, I only came across it there, so maybe there she didn't hide it as well."

  "What did you hear?"

  "When she was yelling at Meir and he went out, her boy was crying and getting a little wild so she screamed at him and I heard hitting sounds. After that the boy was only crying. When they went out, his eyes were red and she was tugging him forcefully. It was only when she noticed us that I got the feeling that she toned her behavior down."

  "And you didn't hear or see her hitting her kids at home?"

  "Of course not. If I was certain this was an ongoing thing you can be sure that I would have made a complaint to the police. Unfortunately, she wasn't much different from parents who smack their kids now and then, but would never do it in public, surely not anywhere anyone knows them, and surely not in a neighborhood like Givaat Shmuel where every little thing immediately turns to neighborhood gossip. There in the North, she thought she was alone so she allowed herself to be a little less cautious."

  "Did you hear the gunshots this Monday?"

  "No, but the windows were shut as usual and as far as I understood, the shots were fired when we were sleeping."

  "What do you think about what happened? You’ve known Meir since childhood—does he seem like someone who's able to get up one morning, kill his entire family and shoot himself?"

  "My degree is in chemistry, not psychology, but I have to say I was shocked. Specifically because I’ve known Meir since childhood. He was a super normal guy, even a little bit of a nerd. If anything, out of the two of them, she was the violent one. Not that, God forbid, I think she was able of committing murder, but he was kind of ‘whipped’. Like, during that vacation, we saw them at breakfast in the dining room a few times. She gave him the runaround. I remember I joked with my husband that I should act a little more like Hanni, then maybe he'd appreciate me."

  "Sounds like you had a pretty robust opinion of her."

  "Don't get me wrong, I have a life and Hanni was definitely not part of it, but I admit that after that incident in the North and that episode in the playground, I was intrigued by the woman. Seeing a person so self-involved—that's not something you see every day."

  When Orit's interrogation was over I was exhausted. The station was almost empty, a calm quiet enveloping it. I made myself a cup of coffee and treated myself to a chocolate bar from the vending machine near the entrance.

  I sat down in my quiet office and looked despondently at the permanent mess covering my table. I took out the picture of Hanni and me that I found in the photo album; Hanni's beaming smile compared to my forced smile. It was interesting that I didn't remember us going up together to receive our diplomas. Frankly, I didn't remember too many details from high school, which were not exactly the best years of my life.

  I was far from being a social creature. I was never invited to parties that I know were thrown here and there in the houses of my classmates. There were also these gatherings at Hanni's house, which I never got to be a part of. My social world consisted of my Convent friends, who were a bit more social than I was.

  I was an excellent student, but this fact didn't make me teacher’s pet. I was what a religious high school would call a “rebellious student." My only rebellion was my stern refusal to go to morning prayers and the fact that, throughout all of my high school years, I continually argued with my Bible study teachers. I recalled "marital relations" class in junior year, when our teacher, a young woman who’d been married not long before, explained Halachot Nidda [rules concerning women's menstruation] to us with glimmering eyes, while stressing how beautiful the Jewish religion is and how it respects the woman.

  I couldn't keep quiet. I asked the young teacher, who was no more than five years my elder, how she could possibly say that the Jewish religion respects the Jewish woman when we women didn't even have the right to testify. I was a good student, but I had numerous examples I could use to prove to her that the Jewish religion is anything but equal and respecting. My young teacher was left speechless. Her reaction was the same as the reaction of any religious Jew who is proven wrong and shown that he's mistaken in his beliefs. She claimed I was taking things out of context and that I must look at the big picture. To this day, I can't understand this answer. The fact that, for instance, a woman can't testify, is very specific and doesn't belong to any big picture.

  And so, despite having the highest scores in the grade, each semester I was somehow passed over when diplomas were given out. When excellent students were sent on a delegation to England, they didn't even bother to offer it to me (Hanni was, of course, a member of the delegation); when excellent students were sent to a ceremony at the President's house, I wasn't there. The only time the school wanted to honor me was when they wanted to send me to a national mathematics competition. They knew they would have a better chance of succeeding if they sent me. I, of course, declined the honor. I didn't like the fact that they were reminded of my abilities only when they could be used to benefit the school.

  By my senior year, my rebelliousness reached its peak. I sternly refused to enter the lectures they organized about civil service. When my homeroom teacher asked me why I wouldn't go in, I told her I'd go to these lectures if they also gave us lectures about military service.

  I graduated high school with excellent grades, except for bible studies, not because I didn't know the curriculum, but because the teacher didn't like my answers. I was the ideal candidate to receive the award for excellence at the graduation ceremony. Hanni received it.

  Maybe that's the reason for my sour smile? Was I jealous of Hanni? I imagine I was.

  I remember my mother was very disappointed that I didn't get the award, although I fully deserved it. Throughout my whole life, I managed to disappoint her so many times because of my stubborn opinions and "inappropriate" behavior, as she called it. If there was one action where I succeed in bringing her some joy, it was my scholarly achievements. She was eventually compensated by diplomas of excellence in the army and in university, but to this day she never forgot that I should have gotten that award at my high school graduation—and didn't.

  I didn't recall if I was disappointed myself or for her, but I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth from that ceremony, where Hanni was crowned the best student and I was left behind, with a pathetic smile and an ordinary diploma.

  Chapter 9

  Friday, 5.22.2009

  I wanted to meet Ariel's teacher at his school. Batya Gantz had a free hour every Friday morning. She waited for me in the principal's room and looked like everything I remembered from an elementary school teacher: she had short graying hair, wore wide and outdated clothes, and wore strange silver jewelry, most of it the craftwork of amateur artists. She gestured for me to sit on the chair on the other side of the table. On her arm was a bracelet fashioned out of a fork. Even her tone of voice was that of a teacher. When she spoke, she only showed her bottom teeth.

  The lady in front of me got lost somewhere in the eighties. She introduced herself as the homeroom teacher of second grade number one, one of the boys' classes. She had been teaching at the school since it was founded, before that she taught in a school in Petach Tikva.

  "I have no words to express to you how shocked I am by this whole story," she said and blew her nose. "I couldn't sleep for two days, I'm just exhausted right now. I've been a teacher for thirty years and I've never gone through such a horrifying ordeal."

  I told her that if it was difficult for her, we could meet when she’d calmed down, but she wanted to proceed with the questioning, and wanted to help as much as she could.


  "Arieli was a beautiful boy," Batya said lovingly. "He had big, intelligent eyes." Batya broke down in tears again and I nudged the pack of tissues in her direction.

  "Was he a good student?"

  Batya smiled timidly. It was obvious that she was finding it difficult to speak ill of the dead. "He was very smart, but he didn't reach his full potential."

  "Why?"

  "I'm no expert, but I do have thirty years of teaching experience. I think the boy had an undiagnosed attention deficit disorder."

  "Can you expand?"

  "May I know how this is relevant to the investigation?"

  It was still unclear to me, too, but I wanted to get to know the late Danilowitz family as well as I could.

  "Mrs. Gantz, I ask the questions here," I said and smiled to soften her up, and she went on:

  "The boy had obvious difficulty sitting down in class. His notebooks were a mess. He had a hard time reading, he was way behind everyone in math."

  "Maybe he wasn't smart enough?"

  "I think he was very smart. When I sat with him alone and explained it to him, I saw that his comprehension was excellent, even above average, but his attention disorder got in the way of his ability to advance."

  "Was he diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit disorder?"

  "No. Well, I never saw such a diagnosis."

  "So how do you know he had such a problem?"

  "Formally, I don’t know, but I do have years of experience and I've had dozens, if not hundreds, of cases in which I knew before the parents did and actually guided them until they sought the appropriate treatment."

  "And what did you recommend to Ariel's parents?"