Moshe's face was red. He almost spat out his words at me. "What are you implying, that I was a coward? That I was not committed? Damn you, is that what you're saying?"
"I was just wondering," I said, already regretting provoking him. I needed information from him and his wife, not to triumph in some contest of who did more for Israel and the Jewish people. From his reaction, I knew that Moshe had never fired a gun at the enemy, let alone was fired at. There were many men like him, fit and healthy men in their prime who'd managed to weasel out of proper military service. The war might have ended sooner if not for men like him. But the war was over, and I gained nothing by shaming Moshe in front of his wife.
Yael placed a hand on her husband's shoulder, trying to calm him, but he shook her off. He rose to his feet, looking like he was about to take a swing at me. "I don't need to hear this. Not in my house, I don't. Get—"
"It was me," Yael said in a voice loud enough to still her husband. Her eyes met mine and didn't let go. "It was my decision not to take in more immigrants, not Moshe's."
"Why?"
She hesitated for a second before saying, "I got scared, all right? I worried that one night British troops would break down our door and arrest us, and then what would become of our son? Can you understand that?"
I stared at her. Her eyes were once again wet and in her temple a vein was pulsing wildly.
"This fear came upon you all of a sudden, just after you had Esther and Willie in your home?"
"Yes."
"It had nothing to do with Esther?"
"No. I swear that it didn't."
I would have liked to have been able to read her expression just then, but she buried her face in her hands and began sobbing. Moshe put a hand on her shoulder. "Get out," he told me. "Before I throw you out."
I did as he said.
Outside, three doors down from the Klinger home, a skinny woman in her late thirties was weeding her yard. When I passed by her house, she said, "Friend of the Klingers?"
"Yes," I replied, not wishing to explain my visit to her.
"Don't remember ever seeing you around here."
Ah, she was one of those. There was someone like her on every street. The nosy type who liked to know everything about everyone.
"First-time visit," I said, and was about to bid her good day and walk off when I thought of something. "You know them long?"
"Ever since they moved here," she said. "Nearly ten years."
"Sure about that? I thought they didn't live here that long."
"Sure I'm sure. My husband and I have been living here since August 1939. Moshe and Yael moved in a month after that, in September."
The month after the murders, I thought, recalling how Moshe had evaded telling me precisely when he and his wife had moved to Netanya from Haifa. Now I got to wondering why they'd chosen to move in the first place.
24
A handwritten schedule posted at the central bus terminal in Netanya informed me that the bus to Tel Aviv would be leaving in half an hour. I went in search of a phone and found one at a grocery store a few doors west of the terminal. The proprietor wanted money in advance. I paid him and rang Reuben's number. He picked up in the middle of the second ring.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"Netanya," I said.
"What are you doing there?"
"Interviewing a couple who knew the victims."
"Come up with anything?"
"Not on the face of it, no. How about you? Did you find anything?"
"Yes." I could hear the rustle of papers being moved on his end. "I checked those names you wanted. I'll start with the list of women. All but one are alive and kicking. The one who's dead passed on during childbirth. The child died too, but I guess that has no bearing on your investigation, does it?"
"No," I said, feeling a pang of sadness at the thought of the dead woman and baby.
"I suppose that means Manny Orrin is off the hook."
"It's not proof positive, but I think so. I didn't like him for it anyhow. Does he have a record?"
"No. Neither does Natalie Davidson. Her husband, Alon Davidson, is another matter."
"What did he do?" I said, liberating a cigarette from the pack in my pocket and sticking it between my lips. I struck a match and lit up.
"He was arrested eight years ago on suspicion of assault. He cut up some guy pretty badly in a bar brawl. According to the report, the guy spent a week in the hospital. Davidson spent two nights in jail before being released. He was never charged."
"Why not?"
"The only person who said he saw the whole altercation from start to finish swore the other guy initiated the fight by swinging a bottle at Davidson. Davidson had a knife on him. He's a fisherman, apparently, and he claimed the knife was a tool he used on his boat. He said he acted in self-defense."
"A week in the hospital, that's some defense."
"I'd say."
"He used a knife—that's interesting."
"I thought so too. Think he might be your killer, Adam?"
"I don't know," I said, tapping ash to the gray tile floor of the grocery store. "I haven't seen him yet, and he had an alibi." I took another drag. "Reuben, if this was a bar fight, how come only one witness?"
He sighed. "You know how it is, Adam, most people don't want to get involved. Some said they saw nothing, that they were facing the wrong way and that it all happened too fast. Others said they couldn't tell who got physical first."
"What caused the fight?"
"The guy who got sliced said Davidson made some remark about his wife. She was in the bathroom when it happened, so she saw nothing. Davidson swore the guy was lying. The witness corroborated his version."
"What's the name of the witness?"
"Let me see…Saul Mercer."
I frowned, reaching into my pocket for my notebook. I began flipping pages. "What was that name again?"
"Mercer. Saul Mercer. Why? You know him?"
I found the right page. What I read there got my mind working. "No," I told Reuben. "Never met the man."
"That's all I have on Alon Davidson. That one arrest. Other than that, he's clean."
I thanked him and once again he invited me to drop by to see his children. I said that I was too busy at the moment, but maybe when I was done with the current case, I'd pay them a visit.
I placed another call, this time to Itamar Levine's law firm in Haifa. The secretary who picked up told me he'd gone home for the day. I asked her whether he had a phone at home and she said he didn't. "He'll be in tomorrow," she said. "Call back then."
There was a falafel stall by the bus stop and the vendor filled a pita for me with falafel balls and salad and a liberal amount of tehina. I sat on a metal bench and ate. When I was done, I wiped my mouth with the paper napkin the vendor had provided and balled it up and tossed it in the trash. Then the bus arrived. Forty-five minutes later I was back in Tel Aviv. Forty minutes after that, I was at the Tel Aviv harbor.
Walking down the pier, I came upon a grizzled, weathered-faced man who was rolling up the sail of a fifteen-foot boat and asked him if he knew where I could find Alon Davidson. He said he hadn't seen him that day and pointed to two men who were smoking on the pier fifty feet further south. "They're Davidson's men. Ask them."
The two men were both Bulgarian Jews, recent arrivals in Israel, and their Hebrew was heavily accented and rudimentary. But we managed to communicate, and one of them, the one who spoke better, told me Davidson had gone home a few hours ago. "He be back—I not know, tomorrow in the morning, maybe?"
I told them I'd come by tomorrow and they both nodded as if they didn't care, which they probably didn't. They didn't ask who I was or why I was looking for their boss.