by Joan Hess
“Then Essie didn’t take it the last day she cleaned,” Miriam said in a low voice. “How could that be, Theo? Dorrie didn’t imply she’d ever been to the cave, did she?”
“Not in my wildest imagination could I envision Dorrie making her way down the mountainside. She hasn’t been more than fifteen feet from an air conditioner since she arrived, except for meals, one tour, and brief bouts of sunbathing. Someone else must have entered her room while she was out.”
Miriam’s voice was no louder than the tiny waves of the Dead Sea. “No one else has a key. Essie used the master key from my office when she cleaned the guests’ rooms, then returned it immediately. I keep it in a locked drawer. I didn’t want her to lose it on one of her nocturnal jaunts.”
“Then no one could have borrowed it?”
“I could have, Theo.”
It was too late to change the subject so he bravely forged ahead. “Did Gili manage to establish Essie’s movements before she disappeared?”
She gave a short laugh. “Lieutenant Gili has decided to keep me informed of all his progress so that I can be impressed by the keen logic of his mind. He admitted that he had minor difficulties with poor Essie’s movement, but that’s not surprising—she wafted about like a dandelion seed in the wind. According to the official report, Essie left my apartment at about ten o’clock. I’m afraid I had scolded her rather sternly about her behavior with the guests. Gideon saw her several hours later near the dining hall, and sent her home. No one saw her after that.”
“And that was after midnight,” Theo said. It was, he realized, the same night he had encountered Gideon, Hershel and Ilana on the beach. Had he heard Essie drifting by seconds before that? Or had it been Yussef on his unexplained mission? Was there always so much traffic on the beach of the Dead Sea? “Was Gideon positive she was going toward the dining hall? Could she have been coming from it?”
“Does that matter?”
Theo sighed. “I don’t know. Did Gideon say what he was doing at the time he met Essie?”
“Ilana was on security duty that night, and I would guess he had been walking around the perimeter with her to keep her company. They were furious with each other early that day over some silly incident, but they seemed to have worked it out.” She gave him a sharp look. “Why, Theo? Do you think Gideon has something to do with this?”
“No, of course not,” Theo said hastily. “I did happen to see him a few minutes before he met Essie, when he, Hershel and Ilana were patrolling the beach together.”
“The boys went back to their apartments and went to bed. Ilana spent the night alone at the gate house. If you’re hoping for tidy alibis, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Theo—but no one seems to have one … including me.”
“I never—not for a moment, I can assure you—would even begin to presume that—well, that you might—” Theo sputtered, aghast—” have any reason, or are the sort of person—the sort of—”
“No, of course not,” Miriam murmured. “To continue with the official report, Essie did not appear at the guest house the next morning. Anya went over to check on her a few minutes before noon, but no one was there. When she came back, she told me that Essie’s room looked as if it had been searched; I thought the idea was absurd but suggested it be reported to Gili anyway.”
“Did he think anything had been taken?”
She shook her head. “He was quite rude about it. Essie’s room was a total mess, very dusty and disorganized; it would be impossible to be sure if something were missing. Someone could have taken a feather or a scrap of shiny paper, I suppose. Other than her treasures, Essie had only standard clothes and furniture provided by the kibbutz. She had nothing that would be of interest to anyone but a pack rat or a small child.”
Unless she had added a locket to her collection, Theo told himself in a thoroughly muddled voice. “So Gideon was the last to see Essie until you and I happened to find her in the wadi. Could she have gone through the gate without being seen?”
“Ilana swore that Essie didn’t leave that way. However, all the kibbutz children know of secret exits. It’s our fault; we encourage independence at birth, and then are dismayed when they take us up on the challenge. Even Essie, in her own pitiful way.”
“Did Gideon notice anything about Essie’s demeanor to suggest she was upset or would leave the kibbutz shortly thereafter?”
“He said she was agitated, so I suppose I hurt her feelings. I must have driven her away from the kibbutz. Oh, God, I feel so guilty about it.” She again buried her face, and Theo could only listen as the sobs drifted across the water.
14
The next morning, Theo learned that Gideon was dead. According to Judith, who brought the news to the restaurant, the body had been found near the edge of the Dead Sea. Lieutenant Gili seemed to have no illusions that it was an accident, she explained in a teary, breathless rush before departing for the children’s house. Runny noses did not, she called over her shoulder, stop flowing for murder.
Theo put down his coffee cup and sagged back in the chair. When he felt able, he signed a tab and left the restaurant to find Miriam. He was blocked by a robust bulk in the doorway.
“Sitermann,” the man announced, sticking out his hand. “I’m from Dallas, Texas, US of America.” His battered, genial face did appear to have spent a great deal of time at home on the range; his nose had been broken more than once and his bushy gray eyebrows were thick enough to shade most of his face from a blazing sun. He wore a white suit more suitable for the tropics, a shirt unbuttoned most of the way to his waist, and a tangle of gold chains around his neck. A horoscope medallion glinted from its hiding place among abundant silver chest hairs. Sitermann was proud to be a ram.
Theo paused for a numbing handshake, murmured his own name, and attempted to sidle around his fellow guest. Pleasantries seemed distasteful. He wanted to find Miriam and do what he could for her. Sitermann wasn’t finished, however.
“Hey, how long you been here, Bloomer?” he said, sidling with Theo as though the two were engaged in a grotesque pas de deux in the doorway.
“Merely a few days.” Theo feinted to the left, but Sitermann was quicker.
“Have you been in the Dead Sea yet? My chiropractor back home swears the water is miracle juice, but I’m not sure about it. Anything named ‘dead’ doesn’t sound too healthy to me. Hey, why don’t you stay and have a cuppa coffee with me, Bloomer? You can tell me if you think the salt water will cure my damned lumbago.”
“I really must go, Mr. Sitermann. Another time, perhaps.” Theo feinted to the right, but again found his nose inches from that of the agile Sitermann. Over the man’s shoulder he caught a glimpse of Miriam as she moved across the lobby and vanished behind a corner of the registration desk. “Damn,” he said under his breath.
“Hey, old buddy, don’t get all offended,” Sitermann said. He stepped aside with a wounded look, his hands held up in a gesture of contrition. The end of his nose glowed like a Chinese lantern (Physalis alkerkengi franchetii). “I just thought us two Yanks ought to stick together, but I didn’t mean to cause you to take offense. Back home in Texas we allow a man a lot of acreage as long as he gives fair warning.”
“I am not offended; I have an urgent errand, Mr. Sitermann. Why don’t we have a meal together later in the day?” Where had Miriam gone? Would she stay at her desk in a display of bravery, or return home to mourn? What could he possibly say that would not be sadly inadequate in such circumstances?
“Sure we will, Bloomer,” Sitermann boomed, his weathered face restored to wrinkles of amiability. “After I get something to eat, I guess I’ll stick a pinky in the water down there on the beach. Did you hear about the local boy what got hisself killed? They say someone stuck a knife between his ribs in just the right spot, terrorist-style. Jordan’s right across the water, eleven miles, you know. It’s damned creepy if you ask me.”
“Then I shall not, Mr. Sitermann. Perhaps I’ll see you at lunch.” Theo darted
through the doorway, then went across the lobby to Miriam’s office. Unoccupied. He left the lobby and hurried down the walk toward her home, for once unaware of the omnipresent heat and the perspiration coursing down his back like tears.
Hershel opened the front door. “Mr. Bloomer,” he acknowledged weakly. His face was white, his eyes dulled by shock and grief. His throat rippled as if he had swallowed a yo-yo.
“I heard about Gideon. Miriam was in the lobby earlier, but she left before I could speak to her. Did she come back here?”
“She’s here, but she doesn’t want to see anyone. I’ll tell her that you came by.” He tried to close the door, but a well-polished shoe had rooted on the doorsill.
“Then why don’t you step outside and tell me exactly what happened?” Theo commanded in a quiet voice. “All I’ve heard is gossip and speculation. There must be more to the story.”
Hershel glanced over his shoulder for help. Finding none, he reluctantly joined Theo on the sidewalk. “Yussef found the body early this morning when he went for a swim. Nobody knows why Gideon was there, or how long he’d been there, but probably since midnight. He was—there was a lot of blood. Lieutenant Gili came in less than an hour, and has been prowling around the beach, sifting sand and stuff. That’s all I know, Mr. Bloomer.” He gulped several times and looked yearningly at the door.
Theo caught Hershel’s arm. “What about the weapon?”
“They found it next to the body. It was an ordinary kitchen knife. Everybody has a couple of them in his house—they’re sort of standard issue. You can buy one anywhere in Israel. The lieutenant said the fingerprints were badly smeared, and he wasn’t about to have one of his men fingerprint two hundred people, anyway.”
“Has Gili interviewed Miriam yet?”
A squawk from behind Theo interrupted the conversation. Gili rocked on his heels, his hands behind his back as if he hoped to be mistaken for General Patton by a horde of cheering, if invisible, troops. “Not of yet, Mr. Bloomer,” he said coldly.
Theo released Hershel, who skittered into the house and closed the door. “Ah, Lieutenant Gili, I’ve heard about the most recent tragedy. You must be growing tired of the kibbutz.”
“I have been here too many days already, and I am tired of leaving my cool office for this wretched place to ask questions of these wretched kibbutzniks. First the Kelman girl, and now this latest tragedy. If I were in your socks, Mr. Bloomer, I would leave before some accident befell me.” The dark eyes seemed to bulge outward as he licked his lips, and the mustache threatened to fly off his lip. Groucho Marx could not have done it better. “But, of course,” he added with visible relish, “you cannot.”
“And why is that, Lieutenant Gili?”
“Because I will not permit it, Mr. Bloomer.”
“And why is that, Lieutenant Gili?” Theo said with more patience than he felt the man merited.
“Because your niece, Miss Theodora Caldicott of Connecticut, is a suspect in the death of Gideon Adler—and of Ester Kelman.” Gili sounded very pleased with himself, and excited at the prospect of avenging his earlier defeat. “I have sent two of my men to bring her to me for questioning.”
“That is absurd! Dorrie doesn’t have anything to do with this—this mess. She’s a tourist, for pity’s sake, and not some Jordanian secret agent sent to Israel to decimate the population!”
Gili stiffened; the mustache froze in mid-twitch at a perilous angle. “What do you know of Jordanian secret agents?”
“I know only what I read in the newspapers,” Theo said, “and that is all Dorrie knows. She is barely acquainted with these people. Why would she—”
“Enough, Mr. Bloomer. I must speak to Mrs. Adler to see when last she saw her son, then I shall interrogate your niece and her friend Judith Feldheim from Brooklyn, New York. I have had a report that there was an argument last night between Miss Caldicott and the victim, and now the presence of her necklace in Ester Kelman’s hand takes an ominous turn. I am determined to hear what was passed in the vicious argument.”
“Come now, Lieutenant, I was present at the table when the purported argument occurred. It was merely a childish spat over accommodations in Athens.”
“I shall have to hear their statements before I arrive at a conclusion. In the meantime, please wait in the communal dining hall. Corporal Amitan has not yet taken your statement, and he is agog to do so. You hurt his feelings when you avoided him yesterday; Amitan is a sensitive man.”
“I should first like to offer my condolences to Mrs. Adler,” Theo murmured without moving. “Then I shall rush to the dining hall to soothe poor Corporal Amitan’s feelings and tell him everything I know. He will surely recover from the previous slight.”
“Mrs. Adler will be occupied—with me,” Gili said. “You must wait until I have interviewed her and taken a statement. Go, Mr. Bloomer, before I order someone to assist you in leaving.”
Theo went. At the dining hall, he virtuously scanned the room for a corporal with a sensitive face, but saw no one who met the criterion. Most of the kibbutzniks sat at tables, brooding or talking in low voices. Dorrie had not yet arrived with her escort service, nor had Judith. When Yussef waved from a corner table, Theo joined him.
Yussef had on a dark violet shirt in honor of the occasion. His face was too strained to produce his customary smirk, or even a supercilious grin. “You heard?” he asked Theo.
“Judith came to the restaurant to tell me. I went by Miriam’s to offer whatever help I could, but Gili stormed in ahead of me.” Theo stared at the formica surface. “She must be devastated.”
“She is holding up well,” Yussef said. “Sarah stayed with her for a few hours, while the beach was searched and the body sent away to be autopsied. Not that there was any doubt about the cause of death …”
“You found the body, didn’t you? It must have been a bad shock, especially when you were expecting a peaceful swim by yourself.”
“It was—a shock, yes. I’d known Gideon since he was a baby, and Miriam is very dear to me, very dear.”
Theo didn’t doubt that. “Hershel was with Miriam when I arrived; he looked quite washed out and upset. He and Gideon were close, I understand, along with Ilana and Essie.”
“Gideon was the leader of their little gang, the one with the mischievous ideas and the chutzpah to stage their pranks.” After a pause, he added, “He was murdered by someone on the kibbutz. The gates are guarded at all times; no one can wander in without a verifiable reason. Every car and truck is stopped to be searched.”
“He was found on the beach. Couldn’t someone have come across the Dead Sea by boat?” A Jordanian secret agent, for instance.
Before Yussef could answer, Ilana and Sarah joined the two men. Ilana looked stunned, as if she had been brutally and unexpectedly punched in the abdomen. Sarah was less visibly distressed, although her jaw was clenched and her lips pulled in tightly.
Theo met Ilana’s eyes. “I’m dreadfully sorry about Gideon, Ilana. I realize that he was very special to you.”
She stiffened. “Yes, Mr. Bloomer, and I shall avenge his death. He was good and kind and strong; he should not have been killed. The ones who did it will suffer at my hands, as Gideon suffered at theirs.”
“Then you know who is responsible?”
“Palestinian terrorists. This is how they kill innocent people—knifing them without a second thought, as though their victims were diseased dogs to be put out of misery. I shall put many Arabs out of their misery.” Ilana spun on her heel and marched away, her shoulders squared and her head erect.
Sarah watched her with a frown. “Yussef, I think she’s likely to do something that will cause much grief to all of us, but most of all to herself. Go catch up with her and talk some sense into her before she blows up Jericho or drives into Hebron with a gun.”
“I can’t leave the dining hall until Gili returns,” Yussef said, sounding obscurely relieved. “You’ll have to talk to her.”
“I’l
l speak to her,” Theo said. “At the moment, she won’t be permitted to leave the kibbutz, so she won’t get into trouble. When she’s had an opportunity to calm down, I’ll find her.” Figuring out what he would say to her would provide the challenge.
The murmurs around them broke off as Gili, Miriam, and Hershel came into the room. Miriam was pale but composed; Hershel seemed thinner, if possible, and thoroughly limp. Gili, however, moved with the brisk precision of a windup toy as he joined a khakied minion at the front of the room.
Miriam was immediately surrounded by her fellow kibbutzniks. After she accepted their condolences and disentangled herself, she sat down beside Sarah. “I’m fine,” she said before anyone could ask the obvious. “Gili was reasonably decent about his questions, although he seemed disappointed by my lack of knowledge concerning Gideon’s movements. Gideon was not a schoolboy; he was twenty-five years old and his life has been apart from mine since he was a newborn baby and I put him in the children’s house.”
“What could you tell Gili about Gideon’s movements?” Theo prodded softly. He heard a snort from Yussef, but did not look away from Miriam’s ashen face.
“I saw Gideon yesterday after Lieutenant Gili left,” she said. “We talked for a long time about—politics, and I almost believed he intended to behave in a more responsible manner. He seemed calmer, anyway, and I felt encouraged.” She looked away for a minute, as though she were reliving her last conversation with her son. “Gideon’s room was searched, or at least that’s what Gili thinks. Ilana wasn’t certain; Hershel didn’t think so. I haven’t been in his room in months.”
The envisioned chaos brought Dorrie to mind. She was to have been fetched, Theo thought guiltily, a situation she would not take kindly despite the implication that her presence was of monumental importance. He looked around once again for his niece, who at that moment entered the dining room between two burly officers.
