Murder on a Kibbutz, page 14
He turned to Cassuto rebukingly, and Cassuto, momentarily defeated, said, “Yes, that was a terrible case, of a girl who washed her hair with kerosene, to get rid of head lice, and the kerosene was mixed with parathion, and she never made it out of the bath. She died instantly.”
“And the grandmother? What about the grandmother?” demanded Kestenbaum.
“Yes, there was a case of a grandmother who was treating her little grandson for lice, the same story. Kerosene mixed with parathion, and instant death.”
“There are plenty stories,” said Kestenbaum in a slightly contemptuous tone, “plenty, so many as you want. Only yesterday colleague here told me he wants to spray hedge against—never mind—against something, and his wife brings him spray from pharmacy and he looks on label, at back, where it says composition, and what does he see? What does he see?” He addressed Cassuto with an expression of open rebuke: “He sees it says there parathion!” he said triumphantly. “So what does it mean against the law?”
“I never said it was illegal. I never said parathion was banned in Israel; all I said was that the Ministry of Agriculture has stopped using it,” replied Cassuto indifferently.
“Don’t hold it like that!” Kestenbaum cried suddenly and gingerly took the bottle away from Michael, who was turning it around in his hands.
“How dangerous can a bottle like this be—it’s hermetically closed, no?” said Michael apologetically, and the two men looked at him with pity.
Kestenbaum returned the bottle to its place on the metal shelf in the metal cupboard and said chidingly, “You know how it is strong? Three drops of this on skin, and you are in another world!”
“It’s undiluted, see, we get it in a concentrated form of almost fifty percent,” said Cassuto. “It has to be diluted and dissolved for use.”
“You remember story I told you with blanket?” Kestenbaum asked the toxicologist. “Tell him.”
“Yes,” said Cassuto with a bored expression, “he can tell you about death as a result of contact with a woolen blanket that was formerly on a horse treated with parathion against fleas. And the man who used the blanket to cover himself afterward died.”
“And how he died!” said Kestenbaum gaily. “He was in the middle to make love and suddenly—dead!” He smiled to himself and then grew grave. “Also that is case I investigated abroad.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know,” Michael apologized, and then he asked, “What’s parathion’s l.d.?”
“Twenty milligrams to sixty kilos lethal dose,” said Kestenbaum confidently.
“I’m not sure that’s the exact dosage,” said Cassuto doubtfully.
Kestenbaum flushed and raised his voice: “I tell you so, I know.”
“Why do we have to know when we can look it up and calculate it exactly?” asked Cassuto, locking the cupboard and checking the lock before returning with them to the other room, where after hanging the key in its place he pulled a thick volume from the bookshelf, paged through it muttering “parathion, parathion,” and turned to Michael, asking, “Can you read German?”
“No, to my regret,” replied Michael.
“That’s a pity, otherwise I could have given you a lot of stuff to read,” Cassuto said and went on leafing through the book.
“A waste of time,” muttered Kestenbaum, “I tell you already, twenty to sixty kilos. Why you don’t believe me?”
“We’ll see in a minute, let’s see what’s written here,” said Cassuto with unruffled calm, and then he called, “Here, I found it. Parathion, lethal dose: one-third of a milligram, per kilo, that is.”
“Twenty milligram to sixty kilos, like I said, no?”
“A teaspoon is five cc, in other words, less than a quarter of a teaspoon,” pronounced Cassuto, ignoring the cry of triumph uttered by Kestenbaum, who looked at him with undisguised hatred, almost taking Michael’s hand as he said, “We finished here, yes?”
“Yes,” Michael said. He glanced at his watch, which told him it was six o’clock in the evening. “So,” he said to Kestenbaum as the latter accompanied him to the roofed parking lot, where only two cars were now parked, “on the kibbutzim, do they still use parathion?”
“Not officially. Officially no, but agronomists of older generation like this poison for spray. Maybe they have some there, why not? You can get it from Germany.”
Before starting the car, Michael shook the hand again extended to him by Kestenbaum, who stood next to the window and said in a low voice, his eyes on the ground, “Only if you have opportunity, please to mention that it was I who found—”
“Of course, what a question! You’ll get all the credit,” said Michael, and he started the Ford Fiesta.
7
“So how long have you been with NUSCI?” asked Machluf Levy as they turned off the highway onto the road leading to the kibbutz.
“Not long, two months,” said Michael uncomfortably.
“You made it in record time, that’s what I heard anyway,” remarked Inspector Levy, resting his arm on the open window.
Michael said nothing.
“They could have sent you here, to be the Lachish Subdistrict C.O.,” Levy continued pensively.
“Yes, but they decided on the Serious Crimes Unit,” said Michael, looking at the green-and-gold expanses stretching out on both sides of the narrow road. Cliches about pastoral peace and quiet, about the quality of this dusk light on these rolling fields passed through his mind. He was tense and thought about his brother-in-law Ami, his older sister Yvette’s husband, who had done his reserve duty during the Lebanon War in the regional military headquarters office.
He had been on a team consisting of one other officer and a doctor, and together they had functioned as what since the Yom Kippur War had been known as a “death squad,” notifying the families of those killed in action. During the whole time he had come home evenings and without saying a word to anyone, without eating or taking a shower, had gone straight to the bedroom, where he shut himself in and lay on the bed for hours staring at the wall. When he was discharged he had ceased to function. He would go to the garage he owned in partnership with his younger brother and sit behind the desk in the office, staring at the invoices and accounts.
In one of her moments of despair Yvette had left the children with her mother-in-law and gone to meet Michael for lunch in Jerusalem. So rare were such meetings between them that Michael had spent two entire days choosing the right place. When he was finally sitting opposite her in the Chinese restaurant on Helene Hamalka Street, with the spareribs he had ordered in front of her, she had told him, choking with tears, the story of this past year of her marriage. She told him about his nightmares, about his black humor with its macabre jokes, about his total lack of interest in her and the children, and she had also hinted, with great embarrassment, at their lack of any sex life.
“Talk to him,” she had begged. “Somebody has to talk to him.” And later, pushing the dish of Chinese vegetables aside—and Yvette was a lover of Chinese food—she said, “Even though you’re ten years younger than he is, he respects you. I don’t know why he thinks so much of you, but you’ve got to talk to him.” And she began to cry again.
Michael, who had completely lost his appetite, paid the check and took her for a walk in the direction of Mea Shearim. She continued talking all the way, and he quietly listened. From time to time he put a comforting arm around her shoulder, and finally, when she fell silent, he sat down with her in a little café and said, “Of course I’ll talk to him if you want me to. But he needs professional counseling of some kind; you realize that one talk won’t solve anything, don’t you?”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” said Ami when they met the next day. “The worst are the stiff-upper-lips, the Ashkenazis, the ones with style. They don’t scream, they don’t say anything. One night I was sitting in the car with the doctor waiting for it to get light, before the announcement on the news. You sit in a car and look at the house and wait for it to get light, for it to be five o’clock in the morning, and you know that inside that house people are sleeping peacefully, and you know that you’re sitting there like the Angel of Death and you’re about to destroy their lives.” And Ami had covered his face with his big hands.
Machluf Levy broke into Michael’s thoughts: “And how are you doing?” he inquired.
“It seems okay, no problems,” replied Michael, turning the steering wheel sharply to avoid a big stone in the middle of the road. “What’s this? Has the Intifada reached here too?” he asked in order to change the subject.
“Well, we’re not so far from Gaza here—of course there are problems. And with that business in Ashdod, and all the searches for the kidnapped soldier, it isn’t easy. There’s no lack of work, I can tell you.”
“I’ve got a son in the army now,” said Michael without knowing why.
“Really?” Levy asked with interest. “Where?”
“In Nahal. Now his unit is in the territories, in Bethlehem. It’ll take a while until he gets out, because he started a year late,” Michael volunteered.
“Why a year late?” asked Machluf Levy suspiciously.
“Because he spent a year with his group in Beit Shean first,” said Michael apologetically, “and then he signed on with the regular army, so it works out to a long term of service. He’s just turned twenty.”
“I’ve got two sons in the army,” said Machluf Levy with a sigh. “One in the Golani Brigade and the other one’s stationed here in Julis, near home. Have you got any other kids?”
Michael shook his head. “Only the one,” he said.
“It’s no good being an only child, it’s hard on them. I’ve got five. A full house.”
“All boys?” asked Michael as they reached the big metal gate of the kibbutz.
“Four boys and a girl,” said Machluf Levy, leaning out of the window as Michael drew up next to the guard. “We’re here to see the kibbutz general director,” he said and pulled his ID out of his pocket. The guard, a young man in dark blue work clothes and army boots, looked at the car and nodded wordlessly. He pressed a button, and the electric gate slowly opened.
“Is there always a guard here?” asked Michael.
“Always,” Levy absentmindedly replied, “but they don’t always shut the gate when it’s still light, only at night. Now, because of . . . because of the situation, they’re stricter.” He sighed.
“The Intifada,” said Michael, again feeling the weight of responsibility for the imminent disruption of the pastoral peace of this place, with its soft, fresh, green lawns, its white-roofed houses with their curtains waving in the pure air, its people on the neat paths—among them two old women driving golf carts who had stopped to converse loudly—while a police car made its way slowly toward the kibbutz secretary’s office. Everything will be destroyed in an instant, thought Michael, it will all crack and collapse after the Pandora’s box is opened. Then he shook himself and again reminded himself that perhaps they were only dealing with a suicide, and for that there were more than a few precedents in the kibbutz movement.
“Yes, of course, the Intifada,” said Inspector Levy. “Here you turn right—here, park here,” he called out, smoothing an invisible wrinkle in his uniform trousers.
Michael looked at the man who rose to greet them as they entered the office. His face was tanned, but its expression was anguished. “Do you want something to drink? Coffee? Something cold?” he asked, looking at Machluf Levy, whom he had already met.
“Something cold,” Levy said and looked at Michael, who nodded and watched the man’s neat movements as he poured juice into glasses from a plastic jug he had taken out of a little refrigerator in the corner of the room.
“Where are the others?” asked Machluf Levy. “We want to talk to the family too.”
“Yes, I’ve told them. We’ll go there in a minute,” the man promised, and Levy now remembered to say, “This is Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon of the National Unit for the Investigation of Serious Crimes, who is heading the SIT.”
“SIT?”
“Special Investigation Team. They’ve brought in reinforcements because of . . . never mind. And this,” he turned to Michael, “is Moshe Ayal, the general director of the kibbutz. But everybody calls him Moish,” he added with a smile, and Michael shook the hand extended to him. Then Moish turned to the desk, which was piled with papers, sat down with a sigh, and pointed to the chairs opposite him.
“Sit down,” he said in a lifeless voice. He turned to Machluf Levy. “And what’s this unit for investigating serious crimes? It’s not part of your outfit?”
Machluf Levy replied with a negative cluck of his tongue. “They’re out in Petah Tikva,” he added, pursing his lips in a contemptuous expression.
“NUSCI is a unit that investigates cases that are of ostensible public interest,” said Michael, hearing echoes of Nahari behind the “ostensible.”
“Yes?” asked Moish. “What public interest? And who’s talking about an investigation anyway?” The second question had a note of open alarm.
“The public interest stems from the involvement of M.K. Aaron Meroz,” Michael slowly replied, “and as far as the investigation is concerned, there always is one in a case of unnatural death, and there are a number of possibilities arising from the pathological examination.”
“You didn’t say anything about this to me,” Moish burst out with alarm in Machluf Levy’s direction. “What possibilities are you talking about?”
“I couldn’t have known before the autopsy,” Levy apologized. “We only got the final results this morning.”
“We now think,” said Michael, “that there are a number of possibilities to explain the . . . the death of Osnat Harel. The first, most simple explanation, is that it was an accident, but as you’ll soon see, this is extremely unlikely. And suicide is a possibility too. But we also have to take the possibility of murder into account.”
“Murder? What murder?” whispered Moish. “Where? Murder—here? Osnat? Tell me,” now the anticipated anger began to seethe in his voice, “have you got any idea of what the word kibbutz means?” And without waiting for a response, he announced, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You can eliminate murder right away. There’s never been a murder here, and there never will be!” With a trembling hand he moved a piece of paper that was lying on a corner of the desk. “It’s just not possible. I don’t understand, what did Osnat d—die of? What did they find in the autopsy?” he finally shouted, when neither of them replied immediately.
Michael searched for a soothing tone and said quietly, “Of parathion poisoning.”
Machluf Levy opened his mouth in astonishment and stared at Michael, who avoided his eyes. “That’s privileged,” he whispered to the room at large. “How could you tell him like that?” he protested in alarm, wiping his forehead.
Moish buried his face in his hands. When he looked up, his face was white as a sheet. He put his hand on his stomach. “Just a minute, excuse me,” he said. He stood up quickly, bent over a brown leather briefcase standing between the chair and the window, took out a big bottle, and swallowed a mouthful of a white liquid that left its traces around his lips. Then he said, “Just a minute, just a minute,” and left the room.
“Why did you tell him about the parathion? How can they polygraph him now?” complained Machluf Levy.
“I’ll explain afterward.” Michael replied. “But don’t forget that this is a kibbutz; there’s no other way of getting through to them.” From the toilet next door they heard sounds of throat-clearing and coughing.
“He’s vomiting,” announced Machluf Levy. Michael was silent. “So are you going to tell him everything?” asked Levy in a panic. “Why? Isn’t he a suspect? Do you know what Forensics is going to say? And Nahari! What’s gotten into you? I don’t understand it at all!”
Michael stared at the desk and said nothing.
When Moish returned his face was grayish white and his hands, which he placed on the desk in front of him, were trembling. But his voice was completely under control when he said, “Explain it to me, I don’t understand.”
“Tests ruled out the possibility of an allergy to penicillin, and the pathological examination discovered a lethal amount of parathion in her blood and stomach contents. There is no doubt that her death was caused by parathion. Since the dead woman had no contact with agricultural crops or spraying, and there was no realistic possibility of it being an accident, the only possibilities remaining are those of unnatural death as a result of murder or suicide. This is what we’re here to investigate now,” Michael explained.
“You’re out of your minds,” whispered Moish, then added in a throttled voice, “Osnat didn’t commit suicide; why on earth should she commit suicide? And how did she come by the parathion, that’s what I’d like to know—where could she have known about parathion from in the first place?” he asked in despair, as if trying to explain something that there was no chance of explaining. And then he repeated, “Sorry, but you’re out of your minds.”
Machluf Levy dropped his eyes and turned the gold ring around his finger in a movement Michael had come to recognize as a cover for anxiety or embarrassment. Moish turned to Michael with a questioning look. His clear eyes were moist, and they stood out in his pale face. His hands shook uncontrollably, and he clasped his fingers together.
Michael kept quiet for a long time. “The Institute of Pathological Medicine didn’t invent the parathion,” said Machluf Levy. “If it wasn’t there, they wouldn’t have found it.”
Moish looked at Michael imploringly. “Do you understand what you’re saying to me?” he asked.
Michael nodded. “Of course I understand,” he said finally, “but I can’t change the facts. And you too, with all the pain and the fear, should want to know what happened here.”
“I still can’t grasp the fact that she’s not here, and it was only a month ago that my father died. What do you think, that I’m made of iron? Throwing it at me like that.”
