"I tell you, Paula," she said, thumping the bottle on the counter, her indignation blinding her to my presence. "I'll never understand how that stupid man became a doctor. You know what—"
The matronly nurse—Paula—raised a silencing hand and said in a cutting voice, "We'll talk about this later, Naomi, all right?" She pointed at me. "This man is here to see you."
Naomi Hecht looked at me. She had sharp hazel eyes set deep in an attractive strong face that some would find intimidating. The sort of face that suggested this was a woman who did not suffer fools gladly. I almost felt bad for the doctor she'd disparaged a minute ago.
"Who are you?" she asked bluntly. Her voice fitted the impression made by her features; it was deep, full, and had iron at its core.
"My name is Adam Lapid," I said. "I'm a private investigator. Can we talk for a few minutes? I want to ask you a few questions about Moria Gafni."
Paula was leaning forward, listening with rapt attention. Naomi Hecht gave her a cool smile that made Paula retreat to the safety of her pencil and folder. Turning to me again, Naomi Hecht motioned me away from the counter and Paula's sensitive ears. I followed her a short distance down the hall, where she stopped and folded her arms across her chest. Clipped nails, I noticed. A slim wedding ring.
"Why would a private investigator be interested in Moria?" she asked.
"Her father hired me to look into her suicide."
"Her father?"
"You sound surprised."
"I am."
"Care to tell me why?"
She parried my question with one of her own. "What do you mean, look into her suicide?"
"Moria's father wants to know why she did it. Do you know?"
"No." Her answer was immediate and without hesitation, but I thought I caught the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. A sign of deceit?
"Well, would you mind answering some questions about Moria?" She didn't respond straight away, so I added, "You were her friend. Don't you want to know why she killed herself?"
Color flared in her cheeks. "You've got a lot of nerve, Mr. Lapid, you know that?"
"So I've been told. Well?"
She pursed her lips, shifted them around a bit, and I wondered what was going through her mind and why she was looking at me like I was a bundle of bad news. Her arms still folded, she glanced at her watch. "I can't talk right now. My shift ends in thirty minutes. I can meet you afterward."
Which would give her ample time to prepare, to decide what to tell me and what to keep to herself—if she had anything to hide, that is. Far from ideal, but I couldn't see a way to force the issue.
"All right. I'll wait for you downstairs."
"No, not here," she said quickly, like a command. "Let's meet in Café Atara. I can be there in an hour." Then, without waiting for a reply, she turned and marched off, snatching the bottle of medicine from the counter along the way.
I watched her go, admiring the efficient way her body moved and the shape of her stockinged calves. Then I walked back toward Paula, who wasn't scribbling anymore, but watching me with keen interest.
I flashed her a smile and asked, "Is Anat Schlesinger around?"
"My, my, you are informed, aren't you?"
"I am?"
"First you asked about Naomi, and now about Anat. Both were close friends of Moria."
"Is there anyone I missed?"
She shook her head. "Moria was generally friendly, but she was closest to Anat and Naomi."
"What did you think of her?"
She took a moment to answer. She had brown hair turning gray and full cheeks, a pair of blue eyes behind round glasses. "I was worried about her."
"You saw it coming?"
"What? No, I didn't mean that. I never imagined... What I meant was that I was concerned about her future as a nurse."
"She wasn't good at her job?"
"No, that wasn't it. Of course, she was young and inexperienced, but she had the desire to learn and to help—and those are the important things."
"So what was the problem?"
She hesitated, studying my face. "You've been through things, haven't you?"
"Things?"
"War. You've been to war, haven't you? Either here or in Europe. You're acquainted with death. I don't know why I'm sure of that, but I am. Maybe because I and most of the people I work with are acquainted with it as well."
"Aren't most people acquainted with death?"
"I suppose they are. But there are degrees of familiarity. I think yours is pretty high."
"What does that have to do with Moria?"
"Nothing. It just means that there's a greater chance you won't take what I'm about to tell you the wrong way."
"Which is?"
"That the reason I wasn't sure Moria would be able to handle being a nurse for long is that she cared far too much."
"About her patients?"
"Yes."
"Aren't nurses supposed to care about their patients?"
"They are. Of course they are. But too much caring is dangerous. You must understand, Mr. Lapid, there's no escape from suffering and death in a hospital. Not even with the best medicine, the finest doctors and nurses. It can be hard to take, especially here in the Pediatric Ward."
As if to underscore her point, the pitiful mewling wail of a small girl burst from somewhere down the hall. The sound made me flinch, triggering a vivid memory of my eldest daughter after she sprained her ankle.
"Awful, isn't it?" Paula asked, and for a second I thought she could read my mind, see my pain, that she was referring to my having lost my daughters. "Children shouldn't fall prey to harsh illnesses, yet they do. And some of them don't get better. No matter how hard you try to heal them, they wither away and die. It's impossible not to connect to them, the sweet poor things. But if you don't keep some distance, they'll break your heart. And I believe a heart can take only so much breaking."
"Moria didn't keep her distance?"
"I'm not sure she knew how. It was as if they were her children, that she was their mother, not their nurse. She would often stay after her shift, reading to the children, talking to them for hours. I cautioned her about it a couple of times, told her she would ruin herself, and she would listen attentively enough but then carry on as before."
"Sounds like she was a terrific nurse."
"Was she? The children loved her, that's for sure. But we need nurses who'll last for years. I'm not sure Moria would have. Because every time one of the children died, or ended up paralyzed, or something of that kind, it was as if Moria went into mourning."
Which fitted with what Lillian Shukrun had told me about Moria crying over her son's grave, and how she was the only nurse to attend his funeral.
"You think she might have killed herself due to the strain she was under?" I asked. "All that mourning?" Not that I seriously considered the possibility, given the suicide note.
"Before, it wouldn't have crossed my mind. Now, who can say for sure?"
"Did you spot any change to Moria's mood in the days and weeks before she died?"
"Not more than the rest of us."
"What do you mean?"
"We were all shaken by what had happened to Dr. Shapira." Paula noticed my bafflement and added, "I see you're not as informed as I initially thought."
"Apparently not. Who's Dr. Shapira? What happened to him?"
"He was a doctor here in the ward," Paula said. "He was murdered."