Hill of Secrets: An Israeli Jewish mystery novel

by Michal Hartstein

  After the eventful visit to Czechoslovakia, Yigal began performing indecent acts on children. It started out as small, covert masturbation in playgrounds, continued on to using kids to help him reach climax through masturbation and oral sex and ended at fully sodomizing children. In the beginning of his life as an active pedophile, he was overcome with guilt and decided to give back to the community to pay for his actions. He began volunteering in children’s oncology units as a clown and magician.

  What started off as a volunteer activity, mostly to ease his conscience, became a paid hobby when he began receiving invitations to entertain at birthday parties. What started off as an activity to ease his conscience quickly became an excellent platform for his perversion. The kids in the neighborhood knew and trusted him.

  In those hours Yigal told me of about twenty-five boys who fell victim to his acts in the past nine years. Some of them were already legally adults. He liked them at about nine years old, although there were a few slightly older boys and even some younger ones. A substantial number of the boys were from his neighborhood and they were repeated victims. Others were random, one-time victims. Horridly, two of the children from the oncology unit were also on the list of victims.

  He remembered or knew only some of the children’s names, but chillingly, remembered his actions. He testified that he only performed indecent acts on most of the children. Four children, who were repeat victims of his, he sodomized on a routine basis. Since he was experienced in the world of children, he could recognize those who would keep his secret. He carefully selected his victims, buying their trust with gifts and flattery, and even threats.

  *

  His testimony was enough to serve an indictment, but we knew that in order to get to a conviction, we would have to get to the victims as well. After Yigal was through with his confession, three teams of youth investigators accompanied by social workers began talking to the victims.

  I joined the first team that went to the Katz family in Givaat Shmuel. Their sixteen-year-old son, Boaz, was a victim of Yigal's, about six years earlier. Boaz was one of the four kids who were routine victims of Yigal's.

  We arrived at the Katz home in the early afternoon. Boaz, a tenth grade student in the Ramat Gan Yeshiva high school, had not yet come home. Boaz's two younger siblings, boy and girl twins, nine-years-old, were playing a video game when we knocked on their door and turned their world upside down.

  Nava Katz opened the door and was shocked to face two police officers and a social worker. After we calmed her by saying that everything was okay and there was no accident, we asked to speak to her in private.

  Asaf, the youth investigator and Tzila the social worker waited in the living room while Nava and I went into Boaz's room. At first she had no idea why we had entered her house and life like this. When she sat across from me on Boaz's sofa bed, she sat tall and rigid, and within seconds lost control of her body, which folded as if I had punched her.

  The truth is, she was probably hit much harder than a punch.

  I don't, and probably never will, have children, but I can't imagine a pain more terrible than that when a parent discovers their own child has experienced such horrible abuse. A few minutes earlier Nava Katz had four allegedly happy children, and suddenly she discovered her second child, so introverted and beloved, was the victim of a dangerous pedophile. After crying for a long while, she looked at me with an angry, red glare and demanded to know who this horrible monster was.

  I explained to her that right now I couldn’t disclose his name and identity, but later on in the investigation his identity would probably be revealed. We went to the living room. Nava drank some water and calmed down. Maybe she was hoping this was all a mistake and that her son was nobody's victim. She sat between the twins and caressed their heads.

  Boaz came home about forty-five minutes after we had arrived, a slim and handsome young man, a thin mustache over his upper lip. He was no longer attractive to Yigal, who admitted he had stopped contacting Boaz about four years earlier. The abuse had gone on for two years.

  He stood in the living room; a large backpack was on his shoulders, looking bewildered at Tzila, Asaf and me.

  His mother got up slowly from the couch, went to him, helped him take the backpack off his back and told him almost in a whisper that there were police officers here that wanted to talk to him.

  Tzila and Asaf went into Boaz's room with him, while Nava and I waited anxiously in the living room.

  A few moments later, we heard heart-wrenching crying. It was Boaz. Nava immediately jumped to her feet and I stood up beside her, keeping her from going into the room. She put her head on my shoulder and cried hysterically.

  Her life had been changed forever in that moment.

  *

  Boaz’s interrogation was relatively simple and easy. Although he was among the kids who’d experienced more serious abuse, he was already relatively mature and easier to question. He was also not an active victim of Yigal’s, so his trauma wasn’t as recent and painful as in the case of younger boys who were interrogated.

  All of the children we spoke to were brought to the police station and all of them identified Yigal with certainty as the one who had his way with them. At first, we didn’t disclose Yigal’s identity. Even the outraged parents, who wanted to know his identity, were kept in the dark. We wanted a clean indictment, and releasing Yigal’s name and picture before a standard line-up could hurt the chances of conviction. The parents and children were requested not tell anyone the story of the abuse. Some of them realized this was a serial rapist. None of them had any intention of exposing any of it. The wounds were far too personal and painful.

  Tuesday, 6.9.2009

  Five days later, all of the boys Yigal remembered and knew their identity, most of them residents of Givaat Shmuel, had interrogated and identified Yigal. We had four rape victims and another ten victims of repeated or one-time sexual abuse. According to Yigal there were other boys, whose names he didn’t recall or know.

  At noon we held a press conference, the objective of which was to release Yigal’s identity in order to reach more children. This was not necessarily for the indictment, but so they could then be helped to get over their trauma, and those around them could be made aware that they had gone through such experiences. We knew we would have no choice but to also expose Meir’s extortion. Yigal and Meir lived near one another, so it would be too strange a coincidence if, three weeks after Meir killed his entire family and committed suicide, we revealed that another resident of that same neighborhood was a serial sex offender.

  This was my first press conference. I decided to play it safe and wore my uniform. That way my mother wouldn’t have anything to say about my outfit. The press room was packed. They knew they were finally going to get some answers about the Danilowitz case and what their neighbor had to do with the case. They didn’t imagine this was only part of what I would be telling them.

  I sat in front of the cameras and the dozens of reporters crammed into the small hall. The station’s media officer quieted everyone down.

  Alon, who was standing beside me approached the microphones and said that in recent days the Danilowitz family murder case has taken a turn. He presented me and called me to the mic.

  I got up from my seat. I was shaking all over, excited by the occasion and what I was about to say.

  “Hello everyone,” I said in a slightly hoarse voice. I cleared my throat and went on. “Three weeks ago we found the bodies of the Danilowitz family: Meir, Hanni and their three small children, Ariel, Galit and Noa, shot in their apartment in Givaat Shmuel. All of the immediate suspicions led us to the unequivocal conclusion that Meir killed the other family members and then took his own life. The investigation of the case focused on ruling out the possibility of an external killer, and to discover as well as we could, the motive for this extreme act.

  “During the investigation, we discovered the couple was facing financial hardship, which led to Mr. Dan
ilowitz’s desperate act. As most of you already know, last week we arrested another resident of the neighborhood, Mr. Yigal Einav. I want to clarify that Mr. Einav has no connection to the horrid murder and that all signs still point to the fact that Mr. Danilowitz is the one who took the lives of his family, and then his own. During our investigation we discovered that due to severe financial problems, Mr. Danilowitz began extorting Mr. Einav, after discovering that he is a sex offender.”

  I stopped and looked at the crowd of reporters. They were looking at me with shocked gazes.

  “This week, Mr. Einav has been interrogated and has admitted his actions. According to his confession, he has raped and performed indecent acts on over twenty children, aged nine to twelve, in the last nine years. Ten of these children have been questioned and have identified the suspect this week.”

  There was whispering among the crowd of reporters and the media officer had to quiet them down so I could finish.

  “In order for us to be able to reach as many of his victims as possible, we have decided to reveal the story and the suspect’s identity. In the next few days, psychologists and social workers will visit schools in the appropriate residential areas. The police and social services will do everything in their power to help the victims and their families overcome this trauma.”

  I nodded in the media officer’s direction and the moment he turned to face the crowd of reporters, the room was filled with loud yelling. There were a lot of questions and everyone wanted their voice heard.

  I had dropped an atom bomb.

  When the press conference was over, I returned to my office and my cellphone rang.

  It was Shira.

  “What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant although I still felt the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

  “What’s up? What’s up, she asks me…”

  “So what’s up?”

  “Apart from the fact that I discovered there was a dangerous pedophile in our neighborhood and that my own sister exposed him, everything’s fine.”

  “How was I?” I smiled to myself.

  “You were excellent. At first I could see you were very nervous, but all in all, you were pretty cool.”

  “And what do you say about what we put out today?”

  “First of all, good job. I’m really proud of you, you achieved a big thing.”

  “Thanks.” I said bashfully.

  “And besides that, this whole story is a giant shock. About Meir and Hanni – there was talk about financial troubles almost from the start, but actually you didn’t say much about it at the press conference. Everyone in the neighborhood knows Meir’s parents are pretty well off, so there was talk about all sorts of entanglements with shady businesses and the black market. Is that true?”

  “Shira, as much as I love you, you have to understand that you can’t know more than what it says in the paper, but I would also recommend that you don’t believe everything that the paper says.”

  “Okay,” I could sense her smile. “But the amazing story is Yigal – just horrible.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Sure. I mean, not well, but I knew him from the neighborhood, from the synagogue. I was even at a birthday party he performed at.”

  “And what did he seem like to you?”

  “Actually, I never gave him more than two seconds of thought. He wasn’t a bad clown, I can tell you. That’s just the thing; he seemed so ‘ordinary’, so ‘normal.’ You can just never know what’s going on with people behind closed doors.”

  “His wife didn’t even know,” I said and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t really a secret detail of the investigation, but it’s not exactly something we publicized.

  “Wow.” She was amazed.

  “But don’t tell,” I immediately warned her and knew she was happy with the fact she was so close to the information database.

  “Of course.”

  “What are the reactions in Givaat Shmuel?” I was curious.

  “I have no idea. I haven’t left the house today yet. I’m going to the playground soon, I’ll let you know.”

  She called me that afternoon to fill me in. Givaat Shmuel was in a flurry. They were in a flurry anyway after the Danilowitz murders, but things were starting to settle down and now I’d thrown a tornado into the middle of their neighborhood.

  People were starting to get scared. Suspicious. There were no kids in the playgrounds. Fingers were being pointed in every direction, but mostly at Meir, who knew but hadn’t filed a complaint.

  Suddenly, there were a lot of good souls who sensed something was wrong with Yigal, that he seemed too strange, even a little creepy. Mothers swore that Yigal offered to perform at their birthday parties for free and they passed it up because they were a little scared of him. Every child that missed school was suspected as one of his victims. Harsh criticisms were also fired at the parents of the victims. “How could they not know?” “How did they fail to notice?” “Why didn’t they look after and educate their children?”

  The news on TV dedicated half of their airtime to the extortion story that led to the discovery of the dangerous criminal. They interviewed Yigal’s neighbors, his coworkers. Most of them described a nice, gentle person, while some admitted they sensed something wasn’t right about him.

  After describing the horrors, they moved on to magazine stories that are prepared ahead of time for these sorts of cases, with psychologists explaining to parents how to recognize a child who’s being abused and a review of previous convicted serial sex offenders.

  I sat in front of the television, exhausted. I stared at the newscasters fervently discussing the story I had been intensively investigating in the last few days. I remembered what Yigal told me himself, that there was a lot of hypocrisy about this issue. That some of the curiosity surrounding the matter is not so innocent.

  I wondered to myself if he was right.

  Wednesday, 6.10.2009

  The ringing of my cell phone woke me up. I was in front of the TV, which was now showing the morning show that was talking about, of course, pedophilia. I’d fallen asleep in my uniform in front of the TV in the living room.

  It was 9:00am. It was my mother on the line.

  Although she was sure that I always screen her calls, I nearly never do. I decided to stray from my norm and ignore her call. If she was so certain I always blew off her calls, maybe it was time to justify the bad reputation she’d given me.

  I quickly showered and put on the first thing I managed to fish out of the dryer. I was already at the door when Tsumi reminded me that he also has a morning routine. I had a deal with that dog: when I was in a rush he tried to make do with just a pee, but this time he wasn’t giving in. He was probably mad at me because I’d neglected him during the last few days. From his usual pee point he yanked me from tree to tree, as if searching for the perfect place to lay down his fragrant package.

  We eventually reached Bugrashov, so I got a coffee at a small coffee shop I always walked past without checking out.

  “You look familiar.” The guy making my coffee tried to make conversation.

  “You must be mistaking me for somebody else.” I shrugged and shot an angry glare at Tsumi, who was standing outside, tied to the rail and barking.

  “Here you go.” He handed me the cup of coffee.

  “May I?” I tugged at the paper that was rolled up by the cash register.

  “Yeah, sure.” He smiled. The paper rolled open and I was alarmed to see my face gracing the front page.

  “Ha!” he said, surprised “I told you you look familiar! You’re the police officer who found that pedophile.”

  I smiled with exaggerated humility and went out to Tsumi, who was tangled up in his leash. I sat at one of the tables and stared dumbfounded at my picture. I thought I must the least photogenic person in the world. Why couldn’t they Photoshop it, for God’s sake? Half of the paper was devoted to pedophilia and Yigal.

  My cellphone rang.
My mother again. This time I answered. As I thought, she had a lot to say about what was in the paper, especially my photo.

  “I don’t get it,” I said after she was done with her tirade.

  “What?” she asked.

  “The almost obsessive way this story is being covered.”

  “But, of course everyone’s going to talk about it. It’s the biggest news.”

  “I think the victims would appreciate being left alone. And when I say victims, I’m not only referring to the kids Yigal attacked.”

  “Who else?” She was curious.

  “Yigal’s wife and daughters are victims, Meir’s family were sort of victims. Meir, and especially Yigal, are presented as monsters, but their relatives had nothing to do with what they did, though it doesn’t stop everyone from judging them.”

  “You’re a good soul,” she said, and I could hear she was proud of me.

  *

  In the office, a pile of paperwork was waiting for me – all the testimonies that had gathered in the case, which I had to work up into an indictment. Alon buzzed and asked me to come to his room.

  He sat on his chair at ease, reclining his head on his hands. His table was packed with case files, but it was clear that he was finally satisfied. A big case, covered widely in the media, had reached its end and the indictment would be strong.

  "Very nice, Levinger."

  I smiled with overt humility.

  "I'm pleased with you. Not just me, frankly, the bosses from upstairs are happy too."

  "Good."

  "Sit down, sit." He let go of his head and pointed to the chair next to him. "Would you like something to drink?"

  "No, thank you."

  He buzzed Riki's station. "Strong, black, with ten grains of sugar," he dictated his usual request. He was in a good mood.