"So as you can see," he said, "Toledano was a dead end. Maybe he saw someone or maybe he didn't. Maybe that person had a beard or maybe not. Not that it made much difference either way."
"Did any of Hartman's acquaintances have a beard?"
"A couple of the neighbors. None of the theater troupe."
"Actors know how to put on fake beards," I said, recalling Isser Rotner on stage as King Lear.
"That's true. But so would anyone else if he put his mind to it. I know what's going through your mind, Adam. You don't want the killer to be some stranger, with no ties to the victim. Because in that case, you haven't got a chance in hell of catching him."
"You said 'him.' You're sure it was a man?"
Meltzer looked surprised at the question. "Of course it was a man."
"A woman can stab someone just as easily."
"But a man is better able to threaten a woman into going into a cemetery in the dead of night. And a woman isn't likely to make off with the victim's underwear."
"Maybe she would, to throw the police off."
"Then why stop there? Why not rip Hartman's dress, too? And why tug her dress down to cover her groin? Why not leave her exposed, so that's the first impression we get when we find the body? Besides, you're overthinking this. It's as simple as it looks. A man did it."
He was making nothing but sense, but there was one fact that needed explaining.
"No semen was found in the victim," I said.
"True. But that could mean any number of things."
"You think the killer used a rubber?"
"It's possible, but most rapists don't. What do they care if they knock their victim up? It's her problem, not theirs. No, I think something else happened."
"Such as?"
Meltzer leaned back in his chair, drew in a breath, and enumerated the possibilities on his fingers. "One, he raped her but didn't finish. Maybe something spooked him in the middle of the act, so he killed her and got out of there fast. Two, the son of a bitch was impotent. I gotta admit, this is the option I like best. It makes me smile to think of him failing that way. And three, just before he was able to rape her, Hartman began struggling. So he stabbed her right through the heart. And once she was dead, he no longer wanted her sexually. He took her bag for whatever money was in it and her underwear as a keepsake, to remind him how thrilling it was to stalk her, threaten her, and kill her."
Neither of us spoke for a moment. Meltzer glanced at his plate. There were still some potatoes left on it, but he pushed it away. His appetite seemed to have deserted him.
"So that's it," he said. "A woman's dead, and a brutal killer is still at large. I wish it were different. I wish you the best of luck in catching him. But if I were a betting man, Adam, I'd put money that you won't."
15
I was back in Tel Aviv by three o'clock. The bus station stank of road dust and diesel fumes. The air was still and baking hot. Around me, people were flapping hats or folded-up newspapers in a feeble attempt to cool themselves.
After buying a soda from a kiosk, I consulted my notebook and settled myself on a bench to wait for the bus to ferry me uptown. As I waited, I thought over my conversation with Inspector Meltzer. Before I met him, I'd expected Meltzer to be at least partially incompetent. How else could he have been so utterly fooled by Dahlia's lies?
Now I believed differently. Meltzer had impressed me as a discerning, observant detective. I suspected that I, in his place, would have been equally hoodwinked.
Meltzer had obliquely given me two assignments. I planned to complete both by sundown.
It took twenty minutes for the bus to meander its way through the city to my chosen stop. From there it was a short walk to my destination. An apartment building in the upper section of Shalom Aleichem Street. It was, I noted, not that far from Esther Cinema—which Anna had visited the night of the murder—and about the same distance to Trumpeldor Cemetery, where she was killed.
In five years, people can move quite a bit, so I was relieved to see the name Wexler printed in feminine script on her door. I knocked and only had to wait a little bit before the door swung open and I found myself staring at empty space. I lowered my gaze and realized in an instant why Meltzer believed that Ofra Wexler had nothing to do with the murder of Anna Hartman.
According to the police report, Anna was five eight and athletic. The woman before me was no more than five feet and petite. Even armed with a knife, I doubted Ofra Wexler would have posed such an intimidating threat as to compel the much taller Anna to enter a cemetery at night without a fight.
Still, stranger things have happened.
This was not the first time I had seen Ofra Wexler. That had been on stage two nights ago. She had played Regan, one of King Lear's manipulative, power-hungry daughters. I remembered being impressed with her performance.
She'd looked different then, in a long medieval dress and her hair looped around her head in a crown braid. Now she wore a red shirt over a modern plaid skirt, and her black hair was pulled tightly into a bun, which accentuated the sharpness of her cheekbones and gave her a severe look. Despite this, she was an attractive woman, with small symmetrical features and a pair of intense jade-colored eyes. Her arms were slim, her hands slender, her fingers dainty and tipped with medium-length nails painted a shining white. The opposite of what you'd think of as murderer's hands, but that's hardly proof of anything. She had not been in Café Kassit with the rest of the actors after the play. I wondered why.
She asked for my name and I supplied it. Then I told her the reason for my visit and watched her lips part and her eyes dilate. It might have been surprise. But it could also have been fear. It was hard to tell for sure. When I asked if we could talk, she hesitated.
"I don't have much time. I need to get to the theater soon. We're playing tonight."
I checked my wristwatch. It was just past four. "The show starts at seven thirty, doesn't it?"
"Well, yes, but I have to get there and put on my costume and makeup. It takes time to get ready."
"I understand. I'll do my best to keep it short. I'm sure you want to help me catch Anna's killer."
"Yes. Yes, of course."
She ushered me inside. Her apartment was small and homey. Frilly white curtains at the windows. A few dozen books in a tall book cabinet. A bulky typewriter on a small desk by the window. A doily on the end table by the two-seater couch, and on it a copy of a literary magazine. Nothing new or expensive, but it all fit together nicely.
Two chairs sandwiched the small square dining table, and she pulled one up and put it to its proper use. I occupied one half of the two-seater. A pack of cigarettes lay near the edge of the table, and she extracted one and set it aflame.
She blew out a ring of smoke and watched it lose shape and dissipate. "I was just thinking of Anna, you know." But both her detached tone and her flat expression were incongruous with her words.
"Oh? What brought that about?"
"Nothing specific. From time to time she simply enters my thoughts. Not as often as she once did, but at least once a month."
Which wasn't all that much in my book. But perhaps Ofra Wexler operated under a different set of measurements.
"I understand you two were longtime friends."