The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

In one corner stood a case full of artifacts. Coins and urns and talismans, just like the collection he'd seen in Baldwin's office at the Amelia Catherine. Bureaucrats seemed to go in for that kind of thing. Were they trying to dress up their uselessness with imagined links to the heroes of the past? Over the case hung a framed map of Palestine which appeared to have been taken from an old book. Signed, inscribed photographs of all the Prime Ministers, from Ben Gurion on down, graced the walls-the pointed suggestion of friends in high places. But the inscriptions on the photos were noncommital, none of them mentioned Laufer by name, and Daniel wondered if the pictures belonged to the deputy commander or had been pulled out of some archive.

The deputy commander was in full uniform today, sitting behind a big Danish teakwood desk and drinking soda water.

An olive-wood tray holding a Sipholux bottle and two empty glasses sat near his right arm.

"Sit down," he said, and when Daniel had done so, pushed a piece of paper across the desk. "We'll be releasing this to the press in a couple of hours."

The statement was two paragraphs long, stamped with today's date, and entitled POLICE SOLVE SCOPUS MURDER AND RELATED REVENGE KILLING.

POLICE DEPUTY COMMANDER AVIGDOR LAUFER ANNOUNCED TODAY THAT THE MAJOR CRIMES DIVISION. SOUTHERN DISTRICT, HAS SOLVED THE CASE OF A YOUNG GIRL FOUND STABBED TO DEATH FOUR DAYS AGO ON MOUNT SCOPUS, THE INVESTIGATION HAS REVEALED THAT FATM A RASHMA Wl, 15, A RESIDENT OF SILWAN, WAS KILLED BY ISSA QADER ABDELATIFAL AZZEH. 19, RESIDENT OF THE DHEISHEH REFUGEE CAMP WHO WAS KNOWN TO THE POLICE BECAUSE OF A HISTORY OF THIEVERY AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR. ABDEL-ATIF'S BODY WAS FOUND IN A GROVE NEAR SILWAN WHERE IT HAD BEEN BURIED BY ONE OF THE VICTIM'S BROTHERS. ANWAR RASHMAWI, 20. RASMAWI, WHO ALSO HAS A POLICE RECORD, CONFESSED TO MURDERING ABDELATIF IN ORDER TO AVENGE THE HONOR OF HIS SISTER. HE IS CURRENTLY IN POLICE CUSTODY.

THE INVESTIGATION WAS TECTIVES FROM MAJOR CRIMES, DANIEL SHARAVI AND SUPERVISED LAUFER.

CARRIED OUT BY A TEAM OF DE-HEADED BY CHIEF INSPECTOR BY DEPUTY COMMANDER

Public relations, thought Daniel. Names on paper.

He put the statement on the desk.

Worlds removed from the streets and the stakeouts. From the Butcher's

Theater. He put the statement on the desk.

'So? demanded Laufer.

'It's factual.'

He sat back in his chair and stared at Daniel, waiting for more.

'It's a good statement. Should make the press happy.'

'Does it make you happy, Sharavi?'

'I still have reservations about the case.'

"The knife?"

"For one." Abdelatif's weapon was thick-bladed and dull. Not even remotely similar to the wound molds taken from Fatma's body.

"He was a knife man," said Laufer. "Carried more than one weapon."

"The pathologist said at least two had been used on Fatma, which means he would have had to carry three. No others have turned up, but it's a discrepancy I can live with-he hid the murder weapons or sold them to someone. What really bothers me is the foundation of the case: We're depending exclusively on the brother's story. Apart from what he's told us, there's no real evidence. Nothing placing Abdelatif near or around Scopus, no explanation for how he got up there-for why he dumped her there. At least twenty hours passed between Fatma's leaving the monastery and the discovery of the body. We have no idea what they did during that time."

"He cut her up is what they did."

"But where? The brother said he bought a ticket for the Hebron bus. The girl went somewhere on her own. Where? On top of that, we've got no motive for why he killed her in the first place. Anwar said they parted after a tryst, with no signs of hostility. And there's the physical context of the murder to consider-the washing of the body, the way it was prepared, the hair combed out, the sedation with heroin. We didn't find a single fiber, footprint, or fingerprint. It indicates calculation, intelligence-a cold type of intelligence-and nothing we've learned about Abdelatif makes him sound that bright."

The deputy commander leaned back in his chair. Laced his hands behind his head and spoke with deliberate casualness.

"Lots of words, Sharavi, but what it boils down to is that you're searching for answers to every little detail. It's not a realistic attitude."

Laufer waited. Daniel said nothing.

"You're overreacting," said the deputy commander. "Most of your objections can be easily understood given the fact that Abdelatif was a thief and a lowlife psychopath-he tortured animals, burned his cousin, and cut up his uncle. Is murder that far removed from that kind of crap? Who knows why he killed or why he chose to dump her in a certain way? The head doctors don't understand those types and neither do you or I. For all we know he was intelligent-a damned genius when it came to murder. Maybe he's cut up and washed other girls and never been caught-the people in the camps never call us in. Maybe he carried ten knives, was a damned knife fanatic. He stole tools-why not blades? As far as where he did it, it could be anywhere. Maybe she met him at the station, he took her home, carved her up in the camp."

"The driver of the Hebron bus is reasonably certain Abdelatif was on it and Fatma wasn't."

Laufer shook his head scornfully. "The number of people they stuff in, all those chickens, how the hell could he notice anything? In any event, Rashmawi did the world a favor by polishing him off. One less psycho to worry about."

"Rashmawi could just as easily be our culprit," said Daniel. "We know he's psychologically disturbed. What if he killed both of them-out of jealousy or to impress his father-then concocted the story about Abdelatif in order to make it sound honorable?"

"What if. Do you have any evidence of that?"

"I'm only raising it as an example-"

"During the time his sister was murdered, Rashmawi was home. His family vouches for him."

"That's to be expected," said Daniel. Anwar's confession had turned him from freak to family hero, the entire Rashmawi clan marching to the front gate of the Russian Compound, making a great show of solidarity at the prison door. The father beating his breast and offering to trade his own life for that of his "brave, blessed son."

"What's expected can also be true, Sharavi. And even if the alibi were false, you'd never get them to change it, would you? So what would be the point? Leaning on a bunch of Arabs and getting the press on our asses? Besides, it's not as if Rashmawi will be walking the streets. He'll be locked up at Ramie, out of circulation." Laufer rubbed his hands together. "Two birds."

"Not for long," said Daniel. "The charge is likely to be reduced to self-defense. With psychiatric and cultural mitigating factors. Which means he could be walking the streets in a couple of years."

"Could be's and maybe's" said Laufer. "That's the prosecutor's problem. In the meantime we'll proceed based on the facts at hand."

He made a show of shuffling papers, squirted soda from the injection bottle into a glass, and offered a drink to Daniel.

"No, thanks."

Laufer reacted to the refusal as if it were a slap in the face.

"Sharavi," he said tightly. "A major homicide has been solved in a matter of days and there you sit, looking as if someone had died."

Daniel stared back at him, searching for intentional irony in his choice of words, the knowledge that he'd uttered a tasteless joke. Finding only peevishness. The resentment of a drill major for one who'd broken step.

"Stop searching for problems that don't exist."

"As you wish, Tat Nitzav."

Laufer sucked in his cheeks, the flab billowing as he exhaled.

"I know," he said, "about your people walking across the desert from Arabia. But today we have airplanes. No reason to do things the hard way. To wipe your ass with your foot when a hand is available."