The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

A sweet smile for Daniel. A drop in vocal pitch: "Good morning, Dani." She picked up a cardboard tube, opened it, and unfolded the contents. "Like my new poster?"

It was a blowup of the American rock band Fleetwood Mac.

"Very nice."

"Avner gave it to me because he says I look like one of them"-she swiveled and pointed-"the English girl, Christine. What do you think?"

"A little," he conceded. "You're younger."

Alice laughed heartily, smoked, laughed again.

"Sit down, Pakad Sharavi. Just what is it that you need?"

"Photographs of missing girls. Brunettes, probably fifteen or sixteen, but let's play it safe and go twelve to nineteen."

Alice's green eyes jumped with alarm.

"Something happened to one of them?"

"Possibly."

"What?" she demanded.

"Can't say anything right now. Laufer's put a gag on."

"Oh, come on."

"Sorry."

"All take, no give, eh? That should make your job easy." She shook her head scornfully. "Laufer. Who does he think he's kidding, trying to keep anything quiet around here?"

"True. But I need to humor him."

Alice stubbed out her cigarette. Another shake of the head.

"The girl in question has dark skin, dark hair," said Daniel. "Roundish face, pretty features, chipped teeth, one missing upper tooth. Anyone come to mind?"

"Pretty genera! except for the teeth," said Alice, "and that could have happened after the disappearance." She opened one of her desk drawers, pulled out a pile of about a dozen folders, and thumbed through them, selecting three, putting the rest away.

"All our open cases are being entered into the computer, but I have a few here that just came in recently. All runaways-these are the ones in your age range."

He examined the photographs, shook his head, gave them back.

"Let's see if she has any." said Alice. Rising, she stood over Hanna, who was still nodding and questioning. Tapping her on the shoulder, she said: "Come on, enough."

Hanna held up one hand, palm inward, thumb touching index finger. Signaling savlanul. Patience.

"If you haven't convinced them yet, you never will," said Alice. She ran her fingers through her hair, stretched. "Come on, enough."

Hanna conversed a bit more, said thank you, and got off the phone.

"Finally," said Alice. "Take out your recent files. Dani needs to look at them."

"Good morning, Dani," said Hanna. "What's up?"

"He can't tell you but you have to help him anyway. Laufer's orders."

Hanna looked at him, dark eyes magnified by the lenses of her glasses. He nodded in confirmation.

"What do you need?" she asked.

He repeated the description of the murdered girl and her eyes widened in recognition.

"What?"

"Sounds like a kid I processed two weeks ago. Only this one was only thirteen."

"Thirteen is possible," said Daniel. "What's her name?"

"Cohen. Yael Cohen. One second." She went into her files, talking as she sorted. "Musrara girl. Fooling around with twenty-two-year-old pooshtak. Papa found out and beat her. Next day she didn't come home from school. Papa went looking for her, tried to beat up the boyfriend, too, got thrashed for his efforts. Ah, here it is."

Daniel took the file, homed in on the photograph, felt his spirits sink. Yael Cohen was curly-haired, bovine, and dull-looking. A missing tooth, but that was the extent of the resemblance.

"Not the one," he said, giving it back to Hanna. "The rest are in the computer?"

"In the process of being entered," said Alice.

"How many cases are we talking about?"

"Missing girls in that age range? About four hundred nationally, sixty or so from Jerusalem. But the files are classified alphabetically, not by age or sex, so you'd have to go through all of them-about sixteen hundred."

Tedious but workable.

"How can I get hold of them?"

"Go down to Data Processing and pull rank."

He spent the next two hours on the phone, phoning Dr. Levi at Abu Kabir and being told by an assistant that the pathologist was out of the office; requesting a copy of Schlesinger's service record from Civil Guard Headquarters; getting a records clerk to search for any sort of priors on the Amelia Catherine staff; attempting, without success, to find out if any of the three detectives had received his message. Letting Data Processing know that someone would be down to examine the missing-juvenile files. Filling out the mountain of requisition forms that legitimized each of the requests. Hampered at every step by his inability to satisfy the curiosity of the people whose cooperation he needed.

At twelve-fifteen, Levi called.

"Shalom, Pakad. I've finished the preliminary on the young one from this morning. I know it's priority so I'll read from my notes: Well-developed, well-nourished mid-adolescent female of Eastern descent. Multiple stab wounds, shock from voluminous loss of blood-she was drained."

"How?"

"Gravity, probably. Tipped over so that it flowed through the throat wound."

Like a butchered animal, thought Daniel. One hand tightened around the receiver. The other scrawled hastily as the pathologist continued to recite his findings:

"The ear pierces were old. Inside the hole was some blackening, which turned out to be steel oxide on the specto-graph-non-gold wire, which means the earrings themselves probably weren't gold and they may have been removed recently."

"Could the wire have been gold-plated?"

"Possibly, or gold paint. Let me continue. There were no defense cuts or ligature marks, so she didn't resist and she wasn't tied up. Which would indicate lack of consciousness during the actual cutting, but there was no evidence of head trauma. However, I did find two fresh needle marks on the arms and the gas chromatography came up with opiates. Heroin. Not enough to kill her unless she had an idiopathic sensitivity, but enough to sedate her."

"Was she cut up before or after sedation?"

"From the lack of resistance, I'd say after. For her sake, I hope so."

"Anesthesia," said Daniel. "Considerate of the bastard, eh?"

"Any sign that she was an addict?"

"On the contrary: The organs were clean, mucosa clear. No other marks besides the two fresh ones. All in all, a healthy young lady."

"What about sexual assault?"

"The whole damned thing was a sexual assault," said Levi. "You saw the genitalia. If you mean was there semen, no visible patches, but the region was too torn up for a complete analysis. The tests we ran were negative. Let's see what else… oh, yes, the wounds were caused by more than~ one instrument. At least two, maybe more."

"What kinds of instruments?"

"Knives. Very sharp. One with a curved blade, the other larger, straight-edged. The larger one was used on the throat. One strong slash from left to right, so we're probably dealing with a right-handed person, which doesn't help you much."

"Any similarity to the Gray Man homicides?"

"None whatsoever. Gray Man used a serrated blade, relatively dull-we hypothesized a kitchen knife, remember? Whoever did this used something finely honed."

"Like a razor?"

"Razor sharp but definitely larger than your standard safety blade."

"What about a straight razor?"

Levi's pause implied contemplation.

"From my inspection of the wound," he said, "I'd say the big one's larger than your average straight razor. There was little or no sawing-the initial cut went right through. Though I suppose it could be one of those old-fashioned heavy ones the barbers used to shave people with."

"What about the curved one?"

"Short-bladed. First thing I thought of was a curved scalpel, but I checked all of mine against the wounds and none of them fit. Which doesn't mean there isn't some kind of surgical knife that would. But it could just as easily be something else: wood-carver's tool, linoleum cutter, even a ohe-of-a-kind-anyone can buy a knife, shape it, and sharpen it. I took wound casts. If you bring me a weapon I can tell you if it fits."