An Accidental Murder: An Avram Cohen Mystery

by Robert Rosenberg

  “We need to know how he died,” he tried.

  “An accident,” she snapped at him, then regretting the bitterness, apologized. “It was bound to happen, wasn’t it?

  I knew it would happen. It’s why I never wanted to know.

  If I knew, I would think about it. I’d imagine him in those places, dangerous places, horrible places.” “We need to know what happened,” he said again softly.

  “As close to the truth as we can. What exactly killed him.” “I already called the hospital. I told them they can use whatever they want from his body. For transplants. There should have been a card in his wallet, but they told me he was in the water, the mud, … oh God,” she bawled, and Cohen grabbed her to give her support. But she didn’t want his support nor need it, wresting her body away, surprising him with an agility disguised by the majestic bearing of her pregnancy. She pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and blew her nose. Then she sighed heavily, and nodded. “I’m okay. I will not break down.” “You will eventually,” he told her simply.

  “Not in front of all these people,” she said.

  “You might,” he pointed out. “I’m worried for the child.”

  “I’ll be okay. He’ll be okay.”

  “I’ll provide for the child, whatever is necessary,” Cohen said.

  “I know,” she admitted. She had never fully fathomed Nissim’s refusal to take financial help from Cohen.

  “Good,” he agreed.

  They stood together quietly for a long moment of silence, each with their own thoughts. Cohen finally broke it. “He called you to say he’d be late. When?”

  “Shabbat afternoon.” “I thought you made a tradition of the sunset.”

  “When he was home,” she said angrily.

  “Did he say when he’d be back?” “He said it would be late, after I went to sleep. It’s happened before. You taught him, after all. The job’s the life,” she said, trying not to be bitter.

  “And he didn’t say where he called from? Eilat? Mitzpe?

  Beersheba? Did he name any place at all?”

  Hagit began to shake her head, but stopped, suddenly remembering something much more important. “They told me a wadi. Not where,” she said. She laughed slightly to herself. “You know, for the first time I want to know.

  Where, when, how, all of it. Every detail.”

  “We need the autopsy, the traffic report, and most of all, some intelligence from the field.”

  “What do you mean, ‘ from the field’?” But before she could wait for an answer, understanding crossed her face. “You mean they don’t know where he was?” she asked him. “They don’t know what he was doing there?”

  Cohen didn’t know whether to shake or nod. He just looked at her.

  She almost laughed, realizing something. “It was bound to happen,” she said. “He deserved it, the bastard,” she added, “taking all those chances. It’s why I didn’t want to know.”

  “But now you want to know,” he pointed out. He was about to ask her for a full recounting of her phone call from Nissim when they were interrupted by a voice calling out Hagit’s name. Cohen turned a moment after Hagit.

  The sun that created such perfect shadows was suddenly in his eyes. He reached into his windbreaker pocket for a pair of black sunglasses. By the time he had them on, a squat bald man in a light blue shirt over a round belly and a bright-colored tie hanging below a reddish neck tight in the collar was reaching out to Hagit from two footsteps away. “Our mayor,” Hagit muttered under her breath to Cohen. And then she was letting the politician wrap his arms halfway around her. Despite lowering his voice, the politician’s condolence—“It’s a loss to the entire town”— sounded like an announcement. When he added, “and to me personally, of course,” it sounded like a question.

  The frown in the lines of his face gave him the proper mourner’s expression, but his eyes gleamed with expectation, waiting for Hagit’s thanks. It was a symptom of an addiction Cohen knew all too well, the politician’s need to be acknowledged as helpful. Nissim had enjoyed that narcotic as well, Cohen had to admit.

  Hagit was right, he thought. This was wrong. They should all leave her alone until the shivah began.

  “Hagit?” he tried, “perhaps … ” But she interrupted him, perhaps misunderstanding his tone of voice.

  “Rafi,” she said to the mayor, “this is Avram Cohen. He used to be Nissim’s commander.”

  The politician nodded at him. “Nissim pointed you out to me at the housewarming. But unfortunately we didn’t get to speak then. Now, to all our distress, we meet under very different circumstances.”

  Cohen racked his brain trying to remember the politician’s last name and political party. A clansman, Cohen remembered about the politician, able to call on a whole wing of a tribe for his campaign activists, distantly related through marriage to at least two members of the Knesset.

  The newspapers predicted a bright future for him when he was elected as a young Turk with big plans for the sleepy town. So far, Cohen had understood from Nissim, the politician had delivered on at least some of his promises.

  In the quiet of the lawn under the bright morning sun, for a second Cohen thought he could almost hear Nissim’s voice that afternoon six months earlier at the housewarming.

  “If Rafi decides to head for the Knesset, Hagit thinks I could get elected mayor.” Nissim said it with irony, indeed with just enough curiosity about Cohen’s reaction to make the old detective realize that Levy had not ruled it out of hand. “Do you think you could get elected?” Cohen had asked then. Nissim was proud. “I did a year on foot in uniform inside this town. I know everyone and they all know me. They look up to me. They listen to me. Maybe she’s right.” Levy had ended the conversation with a wave to a neighbor coming into the garden, and a quick grin at Cohen before heading back to the barbecue grill. That was six months ago, the last time Cohen had seen Levy, when Hagit was barely three months pregnant.

  “Uzan,” Cohen finally said, remembering the politician’s last name. It made the mayor’s greedy smile spread even wider. Cohen was still not used to the looks of expectation on the faces of people who know he was suddenly rich, and hoped for a handout.

  “A tragedy. A tragedy. Poor Nissim,” Uzan said, the smile on his face at odds with both the words and their tone. “He did such good work here. A role model to the young people.” He lowered his voice. “And I understand you were like a father to him.”

  “He was an orphan,” Cohen stated bluntly, for the record. “But father or not, I think there’s too much going on here right now for her.” He squeezed Hagit’s shoulder slightly, “Hagit?” he asked her, his eyes on the mayor, determined to send them all home.

  But when he felt her body tense under his hand, he looked at Hagit and saw the glare of anger drying her eyes.

  The Beast, followed by Shvilli, Jacki, and the principal, came out into the garden.

  Hagit licked her lips, readying herself to speak. She opened her mouth, but there was only silence. Jacki stepped forward. But then Hagit found her voice.

  “No.” She made the single word an announcement strong enough to make everyone pause. “No!” she repeated even more emphatically, her eyes darting from face to face.

  “I will not have people telling me what I am feeling, or what I have to do, or what I want.” She turned on the mayor. “I know, Rafi,” she said, trying to keep exasperation out of her voice, “you want him buried here. My parents want me in Jerusalem. The DC,” she added, emphasizing the two syllables in a slightly louder voice, in case he was still inside the house, “wants him in the policeman’s plot in Beersheba.”

  And then she looked back at Cohen. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?

  Completely crazy. You know,” she said, looking at him.

  “None of them even care what Nissim wanted. Tell them,” she demanded.

  Cohen’s eyes turned to the people gathered on the lawn, each standing separately at a respectful distance from on
e another as if posed in tableaux and away from Cohen and the rotund mayor. “Nissim wrote a will.”

  “And?” blurted the mayor.

  “For one thing, he didn’t want a religious funeral, no Hevre Kadisha,” Cohen said.

  “Bravo,” said The Beast, just loud enough for all to hear.

  “Not even the police rabbi,” Cohen added to the district commander, who just then came out into the garden. “A memorial service—if Hagit wants. If the hospital—or the medical school—can use parts of his body, it is theirs.”

  “Fantastic,” the photographer repeated. He began to lift a camera, but Cohen glared at him and The Beast relented.

  “Please, everyone, come back later,” Hagit said softly.

  “Tomorrow. The day after. Nissim’s gone, that’s true. But I will still be here tomorrow. And don’t worry, Shula,” she said, suddenly raising her voice to address the school principal, whose face was pinched into a worried frown. “I’ll be all right.”

  Finally, Hagit turned to Cohen. “I think I will lie down now,” she said, “I’m very tired.” She said it with deliberate quiet, touching his hand, then leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek before walking through the still garden, as if none of them were there to watch her. The DC stepped aside. Hagit paused at the social worker, whispering something that made the woman frown and say something quietly to Bendor.

  Cohen watched as Hagit passed Jacki. The police woman raised an arm to put around Hagit’s shoulder, but the widow raised her hand and seemed to pat the air, repelling Jacki’s offer. The policewoman looked at Cohen. He nodded to her, so Jacki followed the pregnant woman into the house, while Cohen and the DC met in the middle of the lawn.

  “Do you know what Nissim was doing this weekend?” Cohen asked.

  The DC frowned and shook his head no. “But I’m sure we can find out.”

  “Bezek should check his home phone for Friday and Saturday,” Cohen said automatically.

  “We know what to do,” the DC cracked back.

  Cohen stared at the oversize man. “I want to know exactly what happened,” he said slowly, the words sawing the air.

  “We all do,” said Bendor. “But from what I hear, it looks like an accident.”

  It was a standoff, broken by The Beast’s beeper going off, a second before Bendor’s cellular phone, strapped in a holster on his waistband like a second pistol, rang. The photographer drew his communication device first. The DC reached for his little phone like a gunslinger.

  The district commander said “yes … ” paused to listen, and then, glancing at Cohen for a second before moving away, said “yes” again. Cellular phone to his ear, Bendor scowled and walked to a corner of the garden, to keep secret any more specific dialogue with his caller. The mayor and principal huddled momentarily, and then left via the backyard’s wrought iron gate to a pavement stretching the length of the row of houses facing the empty desert. The pedestrian path took them around the house.

  “You,” Cohen called to the photographer. “Phillipe,” he added, making The Beast’s naturally mean expression suddenly soften into a smile. “Come here.” The photographer approached. “I heard you were at the scene,” Cohen said.

  “That’s right,” said the photographer, his brown eyes narrowing into two thin openings in a sun-and windburned face that itself was buried beneath a black beard just on the edge of being either brand new or fully grown.

  “Some good snaps.” “Good,” Cohen said.

  “I don’t sell pictures to the cops. Except wedding pictures.

  I’ll do them if I need the bread. What are you, Internal Investigations? National HQ?” “My name’s Cohen,” said Avram. “Avram Cohen.”

  “Ah,” Bensione responded. “Are you the one with the book? The bomb? In Germany?”

  “I used to be Nissim’s commander,” Cohen answered.

  “In Jerusalem. You have a card?” he asked.

  The photographer just stared at him resentfully. From his windbreaker pocket Cohen pulled out a plastic pen and a palm-size pad of thin paper with a yellow cover made of thin cardboard. “Your number?” he asked.

  “Why?” Bensione demanded.

  “In case I need to see your pictures. I’ll pay double what any newspaper pays for your pictures.”

  Cohen could see greed in the photographer’s eyes, but suspicion, as well.

  “You sure you’re not going to give ‘ to the cops?”

  Just then Bendor approached, holstering his cellular phone. “Cohen? A word.” The district commander officiously repeated the name when Cohen ignored him. Bendor grabbed Cohen’s biceps to get his attention. “In private.” “You see?” said Cohen, his eyes still locked with the photographer’s. “I am not from the police,” he managed to get in before Bendor led him away from the photographer.

  The DC dropped his grip after a long stride that nearly made Cohen stumble.

  “That was the inspector general,” Bendor said, again using force—this time the position of the highest-ranking police officer in the country—to hold Cohen’s attention.

  “He sends condolences,” said Bendor, “but he asks that you—” “Leave this to the system to take care of,” said Cohen.

  From the corner of his eye he noticed the photographer watching carefully from the distance.

  ” ‘ the personal nature of his relationship to the deceased’ were his exact words.” “I’m sure,” said Cohen.

  “Please, Mr. Cohen,” said the former paratrooper, emphasizing the mister, “don’t make this harder for us.”

  “Never crossed my mind,” Cohen answered. Even he wasn’t sure if he meant it. Just then, he was aware of The Beast holding a camera up to take their picture. Cohen turned instinctively away from the camera while Bendor turned just as spontaneously toward the lens.

  “About the memorial ceremony,” said the senior officer, “he’ll get a salute, of course. Fulfilling his duty, and so forth.”

  “Of course.”

  “My office can make the arrangements.”

  “It can wait,” Cohen ordered. “Let Hagit decide.

  There’s time.” “Good,” said the former paratrooper, suddenly patting Cohen’s arm.

  “We’re coordinated.” The Beast approached the two men, and Bender’s tone changed and he checked his watch.

  “I’m due at the border to meet my Jordanian counterpart.

  His first visit. I’m putting out a red carpet for him.” “Shit,” said The Beast, who now arrived beside them, smacking his palm against his forehead as if to punish his brain. “I completely forgot. I’m supposed to cover that.”

  “I’d better not see you on your bike trying to pass me, trying to get there first,” the big man laughed as he left The Beast with Cohen.

  “Here’s my card,” the photographer said, stuffing it into Cohen’s hand. “Call me around five. I’ll have pictures for you.” He then trotted out of the garden on the heels of the district commander, leaving Cohen in the garden, alone with his memories of Nissim Levy.

  His first two years as chief of investigations, Cohen worked without a full-time assistant. But Jerusalem had grown overnight after the Six Day War, and then steadily with both the country’s highest birthrate—and the pilgrims.

  The more difficult life had become, the more people had wanted God to give them answers, and anyone moving to Jerusalem knows God’s supposed to be just around the corner.

  He had gone through half a dozen aides, assistants, and helpers until Levy had asked for the job. Cohen had known little about Levy when the dark-haired junior officer in uniform had approached him that day in the hall.

  Levy’s name had already been mentioned at a staff session by Schwartz, the patrol chief, who had complimented Levy for spotting drug traffic at a newspaper kiosk in Kiryat Yovel. Schwartz had called Levy “a good cop,” a few weeks before Cohen had fired Gershon Yalowitz with a bellow heard all the way to the holding cells.

  “If you have the brains to match your co
urage,” Cohen had said to Levy that day in the hall, “you can try it.” For the first few years, Cohen would tell Levy that it was his handwriting that had saved him his job. He had joined Cohen’s office in the years before computers. Even typewriters were rare in the system. Everything had been done by hand, from taking down witness and suspect statements to court transcripts—often in the hand of the judge.

  In addition to his street smarts, Levy had handled paper better than anyone in the system Cohen had seen. Cohen had hated handling administration as much as he had loved reading the case files. They were a perfect match—even if Levy’s ambitions sometimes had outrun his abilities.

  As Levy had learned, and as Cohen had kept raising the standards, something more than the loyalty of a trusted assistant had taken over their relationship. Cohen’s only child had died unborn with its mother less than a year after Cohen’s marriage, right after the Six Day War in one of the PLO bombings in the city. It had never been said directly between them, but for Cohen, Nissim had been the closest he had ever had to a son. Nissim’s own loyalty meant that when Cohen had fallen out of favor, so had Nissim. And when Cohen’s star had risen again—even if he was no longer on the force—so had Nissim’s.

  So more than anything else, Nissim’s suffering for Cohen’s failures or successes was the reason for the sadness the old man felt that morning alone in the bright green garden at the edge of the desert. He lay down on the grass and listened to the sound of his heart beating and the wind, closing his eyes against the warming sun, thinking about Nissim.

  15.

  “Boss?”

  Daydreaming, dozing, or sound asleep, Cohen had been thinking back to his last investigation for the police, when Nissim had taken a knife in the shoulder blade from a suspect trying to get away. In his hospital bed, Nissim had opened his eyes and smiled at Cohen, saying, “Boss?” But this voice was different. “Boss, you okay?” it asked.