The Bar Mitzvah Murder Read online

  “I’m sure it’ll take some time for you to accept that it’s happened. You can call the police and talk to them. Marnie went to identify him yesterday. I haven’t seen her since.” I stopped, and then, before she could say anything, I said, “Mrs. Silverman, why are you in Jerusalem now?”

  “I—I wanted . . .” It was clear she had no answer. “If you want to know the truth, I wanted to see the party without being part of it. They’re all my family. I just couldn’t bring myself to be a guest.”

  Something about what she said and the way she said it had the ring of truth. “I can understand that,” I said sympathetically.

  “Well. Thank you for coming.” Her voice had become brisk. She stood and offered her hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t very helpful. This is quite a shock. I’ll have to make some phone calls now, if you don’t mind.”

  “I understand.” I shook her hand and went to the door. I could hear her bolt it as I stepped into the hallway.

  8

  I called Mel from a phone in the lobby and told her I was finished talking to Judy.

  “When are we visiting the Old City?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow, if the guide is available. I can call Jack later. It’s Officer Davidson’s wife who’s arranging this.”

  “I can’t wait. Want to do some more sightseeing today?”

  “Is that a euphemism for shopping?” I asked, laughing.

  “Uh, not exactly. I wouldn’t mind some more shopping, but I’d really like to see the Israel Museum. Hal took the kids there and he wants to take them somewhere else today. He’s having such a good time, I’m afraid he’s going to give up his law practice and become a stay-at-home father. It’ll be the end of our marriage.”

  “It’ll wear off, Mel. But I’m definitely up for the museum.”

  “Good. Can you find your way to my hotel?”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  The museum was spectacular, situated on a hill and reached by walking up more stairs than I could count. Along one side was the Billy Rose Sculpture Garden, which we decided to walk through on the way out. But before we even got near the main building, we detoured for a permanent exhibit, in its own wonderful low, dark building, of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I nearly had to pinch myself to believe that I was standing a few feet away from those documents. I started thinking of the way we use the word old . I know people who have an old house: it was built around the turn of the century. But here were artifacts that were two thousand years old. It was mind-boggling.

  When we finished, we continued up the stairs to the main museum and decided to stop in the cafeteria for lunch. While we ate, I told Mel about my conversation with Judy Silverman.

  “What you’re telling me is that you believed her,” Mel said.

  “Let me just say that she sounded believable.”

  “But what was she doing there? She went all by herself, without her husband, stayed in the same hotel where she knew her father’s big party would be. That’s no coincidence.”

  “Of course it’s not a coincidence. She’s conflicted, Mel. She feels she’s hated her father since he and her mother split up, but something in her wanted to be part of his celebration.”

  “You need a more suspicious nature, Chris. Judy Silverman wasn’t there to share her father’s celebration; she was there to observe it or check out what was going on. You didn’t happen to look out her window, did you?”

  “Good thought. No, I didn’t. I should go back and see what the view is. You’re suggesting she could watch the party from her room.”

  “And maybe send messages to someone who was out to hurt Gabe.”

  “That’s a very frightening thought.”

  “Somebody killed him; let’s not forget that.”

  “And it was done in a careful, well-planned way that required the use of a special vehicle, at least two conspirators—”

  “And maybe more.”

  “I’ll have to tell Officer Davidson to interview her.”

  “I think you should.”

  “Let’s find a phone when you’re finished with your salad.”

  Finding a phone was easy; getting to use one wasn’t. It turned out you needed a phone card that could be bought at any post office. We just didn’t happen to be in or near a post office. Mel, however, is resourceful. She found a security guard and explained our problem and he offered me the use of his cell phone, so I managed to make my call to Jack’s phone. He started out by telling me that Mel and I were on for a tour of the Old City tomorrow. Raouf, our guide, would meet us at the American Colony Hotel at ten A.M. and drive us in his car.

  “And what’s new with you?” Jack asked.

  “Mel and I have just had lunch at the Israel Museum. We saw the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jack. It’s overwhelming.”

  “So’s my work here. We’ll have to come back for a second trip so I can see what you’re seeing.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me on that. We’re about to look at more of the museum. It’s much too big to do in one visit. I wanted to tell you that I talked to Judy Silverman, Gabe’s daughter, and she claims she came to Israel by herself. She’s meeting her husband in London in a few days.”

  “You believe her visit is innocent?”

  “She sounds believable, but I can’t swear that she’s just here to catch a glimpse of her father.”

  “I’ll tell Joshua. I’m sure he’ll want to check it out for himself. He’s out right now, but I think he’s coming back soon.”

  “OK. Just wanted you to know.”

  “You picking me up?”

  “Sure.”

  “See you then.”

  Mel was delighted that our tour was on. She had a list of places in the Old City that she wanted to see, including the shop of an Armenian potter. “He’s got fabulous dishes and tiles and serving pieces,” she said. “My aunt has a set of hors d’oeuvre plates that I’d like for myself. If it’s not on the tour, we’ll go there later.”

  “We’ll make it part of the tour,” I said. “Jack thinks we shouldn’t be two women alone there. Just to be on the safe side.”

  “Sounds like Hal. OK. We’ll play it safe.”

  We selected a couple of exhibits and finished up in the gift shop, where they had postcards and books and other interesting things to tempt one. We both left with little bags of goodies.

  By this time, it was getting to be late afternoon and traffic was starting to look like rush hour in a busy city. I drove to Mel’s hotel and had a cup of coffee with her and then went to the police station to pick up Jack.

  He was a little later than he had been yesterday, so I sat and waited. When he finally walked out of the building, Joshua Davidson was with him. I got out of the car to say hello.

  “I thank your wife very much for arranging this tour tomorrow,” I said.

  “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. He’s an excellent guide and we’ve used his services many times. But I must talk to you for a moment.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “It’s about this woman: Mrs. Silverman, Mr. Gross’s daughter.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m afraid she’s left the country.”

  “Today? She said she was going to London in a few days to meet her husband.”

  “We checked the airlines and a Judith Silverman boarded a flight to Frankfurt earlier this afternoon.”

  “I see. Maybe she couldn’t get on a London plane.”

  “Maybe she just wanted to get on the first plane out of Israel.”

  “Doesn’t sound very good, does it? I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner.”

  “I think she may have checked out of the hotel as soon as you left her. We probably couldn’t have stopped her even if we’d known.”

  I looked at Jack. “I guess I misjudged her.”

  “Look, you found her. That’s what’s important.”

  “She didn’t happen to mention a hotel in London, did she?”

  “She just said L
ondon.”

  “We’ll find her.” He smiled. “Thanks for your good work.”

  “Uh, before you go, I’m told she’s newly married. It’s possible she has an old passport with her. She might be using her maiden name, Gross.”

  “Good point.” He told Jack he’d see him tomorrow and took off at a jog.

  “I screwed up,” I said. “I should have told him sooner. What a mess. Pretty soon all our suspects will have left the country.”

  “You’re right; that’s a problem. But I’ve got a bigger problem. I’m starving. Let’s pick up Mom and Dad and that kid of ours and have something to eat.”

  9

  “We’re going to Masada tomorrow,” Jack’s mother said as we sat down at the table in the restaurant they had chosen.

  “I wish I could go with you, but my friend Mel and I are taking a tour of the Old City.”

  “Oh, we’d love to do that. Too bad we didn’t talk to you before we got our tickets.”

  “I’ll get this guide’s card and you can call him,” I promised. “And you tell me how to get to Masada.”

  “It’s a wonderful trip, Chris. We visit Masada in the morning before it gets too hot and then we get to swim in the Dead Sea in the afternoon.”

  “That sounds wonderful. It’s full of salt, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes. You can’t sink if you try. I’m glad you packed a bathing suit for Eddie.”

  “I’m going to swim in the Dead Sea,” he announced. “Grandma says I can stand up and float.”

  “Well, hang on to Grandma anyway, OK?”

  “And we’re going to do the mud,” she went on.

  “What mud?”

  “From the Dead Sea. It heals everything. I’m going to pack it on my achy knee. I’ve heard it really works.”

  “And I’m putting it on my shoulders and elbows,” my father-in-law said. “May as well try everything.”

  Why not? I thought. It’s all right here.

  When we got back to the hotel, there was a message to call Officer Davidson.

  “Well, she’s disappeared,” Jack said when he got off the phone.

  “Judy Silverman?”

  “Into thin air. She got as far as Frankfurt, there’s no question about that, but the trail is cold from there. There’s no telling where she is. She’s not in any of the hotels they thought she might be in. She’s got money, right?”

  “Lots of it.”

  “So she’s probably not in a bed-and-breakfast.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Unless she’s trying to elude the police.”

  “Draw your own conclusions. She’s gone.”

  I lay awake thinking about Judy Gross Silverman. Obviously, she had come to Jerusalem to be where her father was at his Bar Mitzvah. What her motivation was I couldn’t be sure. That she was hurt because of her parents’ divorce I had no doubt. But was it possible that she wanted him dead so much that she would participate in his murder?

  I wished I had thought to look out her window. First thing in the morning I would dash over to her hotel and ask to see her room or at least a floor plan. While I could not imagine a young woman killing her own father with her own hand, I could see her organizing his murder, perhaps giving a signal from her window to someone on the patio.

  It irked me that Judy had taken off after I left. She had said she had phone calls to make, and I had assumed she meant to her mother and brother, perhaps to her husband as well. But I saw now that the call or calls had been to an airline, or several airlines, until she got herself on the first plane out of the country. She knew the police would be right behind me and she didn’t want to be questioned officially. I hadn’t handled this well at all.

  In the morning I drove Jack to work and then went from there to the hotel where the party had been. The manager Mel and I had spoken to on Monday was there and remembered me. I asked to see the suite Judy Silverman had stayed in. He checked the register, then took me upstairs. The suite was empty and looked exactly as I remembered it.

  “I just want to look out the windows,” I said.

  The look of distaste seemed permanently fixed on his face, but he said nothing. Probably he thought it was better to indulge me than to talk to the police. I walked from window to window in the living room and then did the same in the bedroom. Every window overlooked the patio where Gabe had been found unconscious. Judy could have stood or sat at any one of them and watched the band off to the right and seen her father attacked farther back and to the left. If she hadn’t taken part in his killing, she might well know who had.

  Before I left, I asked the manager where I could buy a phone card. They were available at the hotel desk and also, he told me, at any post office. With one in my purse, I would be prepared if I needed to use a pay phone again.

  Mel arrived a little before ten and we waited downstairs till Raouf arrived. He was just as Joshua had described him, a man in his thirties, dressed casually and wearing an officiallooking badge that identified him as a professional guide. We all introduced ourselves and went outside to his car.

  I didn’t make much progress on the murder of Gabriel Gross that day, but I would not have traded the day for anything in the world. The Old City was simply wonderful. Raouf gave us lots of historical, geographical, and religious information as we walked, and I made notes on the map I carried to remind me where various sites were. For Mel I’m sure visiting the Western Wall was the highlight of the day. Men and women were separated there, as was customary among the Orthodox. She had already prepared a message, written on a small scrap of paper, which she stuck in a crack in the wall along with many others. The contents of the message were supposed to reach God. She suggested I write one myself, and I decided to do so, asking for God’s blessings on my family. Mel never told me what she wrote in hers.

  The wall is at one end of a huge open area where people walk or congregate. There were several tour groups there, and we could hear German and Japanese as we walked by. It’s a stunning sight, the wall, the people praying, and above and beyond it the gold dome of the Dome of the Rock. But for me the great moment was standing on the site in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was buried. The site is enclosed in a small building within the great church. Raouf had told us in advance that hanging on the rear wall of the inner room was a painting of Mary. If the resident priest was not there, Raouf said, we could quickly pull the hinged picture away from the wall and touch the rock on the wall behind that was the last piece of the tomb of Jesus and then shut it immediately. We did this and were apparently the only ones there at that time who knew about it.

  There were candles burning everywhere, and I lit my usual ones, in memory of my parents and Aunt Meg. How pleased they would be to know where I was today. And how sad that they had not lived to see it for themselves.

  There was so much more—the Via Dolorosa, several stations of the cross, long, narrow covered streets through which Arab women walked in their long dresses with heads covered, hundreds of shops selling all kinds of things from the Mideast. Mel and I both bought saffron at a wonderful-smelling spice store so we could make paella when we returned. (Mel promised to show me how to do it.) The spices were all in open sacks and were scooped out and weighed to order. Besides smelling very fresh and pungent, they cost much less than we were accustomed to at home.

  There were shops selling fine jewelry and shops selling less expensive jewelry. We found the Armenian potter’s shop and went inside. It was a shop with a few small rooms, walls and floors of stone, and beautiful, colorful handmade pottery. Mel found the set of eight different plates that she had been looking for, and I got a wonderful bowl that we could use for fruit or salad or just leave on a table to look beautiful.

  Raouf took us to churches with fine tile work on the floors and walls. He saw to it that aggressive shopkeepers kept their distance, and I realized I was glad we were accompanied by a man. Between twelve and one we stopped at an Arab-run restaurant for lunch. Mel and I ordered several small salad
s and shared them while Raouf selected his own fare. We treated him; I’m sure we didn’t have to, but we appreciated him so much, it was hard to express.

  By the time the tour was coming to an end, Mel and I had both acquired a number of small bags with pottery, olive wood carvings, spices, and some other things we would enjoy at home for a long time. The last place we visited was the Cardo. This ancient Roman street of shops a couple of stories below street level had been unearthed recently by archaeologists working over a period of years. Today these modern shops sold jewelry and interesting clothing, small embroidered bags, silk, and lace. When we reached the end, we were once again in sunlight. We had walked through all four quarters of the Old City, the Jewish, the Muslim, the Christian, and the Armenian. We had passed the Citadel, which Raouf suggested we visit at another time, and we had seen more than I could remember without prompting.

  Raouf drove us to my hotel, and Mel and I sat in the courtyard over coffee and dessert and talked about what a wonderful day it had been.

  “My cinnamon smells fantastic,” Mel said, sticking her nose into a brown paper bag. “I wish I’d gotten more spices. But that’s what I always say when it’s too late.”

  “I’m looking forward to making paella. Jack and I had it once somewhere in New York and I remember how yellow the rice was. This has just been an incredible day.”

  “I’ve seen so many pictures of the wall. It’s hard to believe I’ve actually been there. You must feel the same way about your church.”

  “I do. I’ll write a note to Joseph tonight and tell her. I hope she’s able to visit here someday.”

  “What are you guys doing over the weekend?”

  “Oh, Mel, they don’t have weekends here. Everything closes early on Friday for the sabbath, but Sunday is a workday. I’m afraid all we’ll have is Friday afternoon and Saturday. Jack wants to drive around and see some other parts of the country.”

  “It’s a small country. You can do that.”

  “What are we going to do about Cousin Gabe?”