Levine was silent for a long moment. His breathing sounded fast and shallow over the line. At length he said, "I don't want trouble."
"Me either."
"It's not my colleagues I'm worried about."
"Who, then? Strauss?"
He didn't answer.
"If he asks, you can tell him I called you and you told me to get lost. I'm not going to tell him different. The man practically threw me out of his office."
"Well, Mr. Lapid, I can see how one might tire of your presence."
He said this in a tone so dry and free of inflection that I burst out laughing. After a second, Levine joined in the laughter. I didn't hear a crack, but just like that the barrier between us had crumbled.
"Call me Adam, all right?" I said.
"And I'm Itamar. I'm sorry for giving you a hard time. At least now I know why Strauss has been looking for me."
"He called you?"
"At the firm. Twice. Once yesterday and once today. Urgent business, he said. I've been putting off getting back to him for as long as I can."
"He'll tell you not to talk to me."
He sighed loudly. "Which is all the reason I need to do just that. Go ahead; ask me what you want."
I drank some more soda and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
I said, "Did Mr. Strauss hire Esther because of her looks?"
"I'm sure that was one of his considerations. Perhaps the primary one. But as I said, she was very good at her job. She had to be. Leah was so lousy at it."
"And Strauss kept Leah on because…"
"Because she was his mistress. Because it was easier to give her money that way without his wife finding out. He paid her much more than any secretary ought to get."
Which was probably why Leah Goldin had said Strauss was a wonderful man, I thought.
"Are they still involved?" I said.
Levine said he didn't know.
"Are you certain Strauss had his sights set on Esther?"
"No doubt about it. I saw how he looked at her."
"Did he act on it?"
"If he didn't, he was about to."
"What makes you say that?"
Levine sighed again and said in a disgusted tone, "Because of the necklace."
"What necklace?"
"Two weeks before I left for Cairo—three weeks or so before Esther was killed—I saw her in the office with a string of pearls around her neck. I knew right away she couldn't have bought them herself, not on her salary, but I thought maybe the pearls were some heirloom or a present from a suitor. I asked her about it and she said Strauss had given it to her. A gift, he said, for all—"
"The good work she's been doing," I completed his sentence, my insides twisting into a cold knot. So that was where the pearl necklace in the picture of Esther and Willie had come from.
"How did you know that?" Levine asked.
I told him about Dana, the pretty secretary, and the silver bracelet she had received from Strauss.
"That lecherous son of a bitch," Levine said, anger and hatred dripping from every word.
I finished my soda and set the empty bottle on the floor.
"Were Leah and Esther as close as Leah says?"
"They looked friendly enough," Levine said. "But were they close friends? That I cannot say. The only person Leah seemed truly close to was Mr. Strauss."
"Wouldn't she be upset or jealous seeing him set his sights on Esther?"
"It's logical. But maybe she was blind to it, like Strauss's wife was blind to all his philandering."
I wedged the receiver between jaw and shoulder and lit a cigarette. It wiped away the overripe aftertaste the soda had left in my mouth.
I said, "A few days before she died, Esther told a friend she had some trouble at work. Any idea what it was?"
"No," Levine said. "I don't. Whatever it was, it must have happened while I was in Egypt."
"Strauss told me that Esther was upset because when she'd asked him for a raise, he'd refused. But given that he'd bought her an expensive necklace, it doesn't seem logical he would refuse her a raise, does it?"
"No. No, it doesn't."
"Why would he lie about something like that?"
"I don't know, Adam. The man is not above lying, that I can tell you."
"Is he also capable of killing?"
Levine was silent for a long, hollow moment. At last he said, "I don't know. He's ruthless in business, but that's not quite the same thing, is it?"
"No," I admitted, watching cigarette smoke undulate before my eyes.
"And I just can't picture him killing a baby. I hate him. I despise him. I fear him. But I can't see him doing that."
That was the thing, wasn't it? So far, none of the people I'd encountered were the sort who would kill a baby. But then again, would you recognize such a person? Would you see their depraved nature on their face? A madness like that was coiled deep inside the dark recesses of the soul, where no one could see it. It only emerged when opportunity allowed it to, or, as in Auschwitz, when the reins of civilization were loosened and madmen were given license to satisfy their maniacal urges.
"Do you think Strauss did it?" Levine asked.
"He had an alibi. His wife told the police he was with her that night."
"You think she was lying?"
"Wives have been known to do that. But it's too late to find out."
"I know. But what would be his motive?"
"I don't know," I said, staring at the burning tip of my cigarette. Strauss's smug face hovered before my face. I stabbed at it with the cigarette, and it vanished.
Levine and I spoke for a minute more. He asked me again not to say anything to Strauss about our talk. I was about to inquire what Strauss had done to earn his hatred and fear, but dismissed the idea. Why would Levine want to relive painful moments? What good would that do?
After hanging up, I returned the empty bottle to the bar and paid for my call.
"Come again soon," the woman said, her tone as cheerful as a funeral dirge.
29
My hands jammed deep in my pockets, I hiked uptown. The heat was intense and the sun was harsh on my eyes. I kept my gaze aimed at a point three meters ahead on the gray sidewalk, ruminating on this mess of a case.
The first problem was that there were too many lies and withheld truths, and too many people guilty of one or both. I counted them off in my mind.
Alon Davidson had lied about his alibi and had tried to lie about kissing Esther. He might have lied about not having an affair with her. Moshe Klinger had lied—or obfuscated the truth—about the timing of his family's move from Haifa to Netanya, and his wife, Yael, had lied about the reason why they had stopped sheltering immigrants. Leah Goldin had not told me about the affair she'd had with Strauss, and I was beginning to suspect she had also lied to me, but I wasn't sure about what. She had also called Strauss, presumably to inform him of my talk with her. Strauss, in turn, had lied about the reason why Esther had been troubled during her final days.
Each of them could have perfectly innocent reasons for their lies and evasions, or they might be trying to cover their tracks. I needed to find a way to separate the innocent from the guilty.
The second problem was that, as far as I knew, apart from Alon Davidson, none of the men and women on my list had a motive to kill Esther Grunewald. And none of them, including Davidson, had a motive to kill Willie Ackerland, not to mention deface the bodies. Maybe one of them had gone crazy, as Rivlin believed the killer had done. If so, the killer just might be some random stranger, but I had based my entire investigation on the assumption that he or she knew Esther and had a reason to kill her.
My instincts told me that assumption was correct. This was no random murder, but a targeted killing. The killer had gone after Esther specifically. My task was to figure out the why to be able to finger the who.