"All sorts. We went to the cinema or for walks or to cafés, things like that."
"Just the two of you?"
"Sometimes. Or with another friend of ours."
"Anat Schlesinger?"
Naomi Hecht nodded. "Yes. With Anat."
"I'll need to talk to her. Can you give me her address?"
She recited it. I jotted it in my notebook.
My coffee had become lukewarm by then. I finished it in one gulp, then tapped my fingers on the table, trying to decide how to proceed. The easy questions were done. Now it was time for the uncomfortable ones.
"Do you know who Moria's lover was?" I asked.
"What makes you think she had one?"
I told her about the condoms in the bedside cabinet. An awkward smile played across her lips before she smothered it.
"I don't know," she said. "She didn't tell me."
Which wasn't surprising, given the secret nature of Moria's relationship with her lover.
"Did she go on dates?"
"On occasion. But never more than a couple of times with the same man."
"Why did none of them last?"
Naomi Hecht considered the question and answered slowly, "She had the bad luck of attracting unworthy men, I think."
"Do you remember any of their names?"
"No, I don't. I'm not sure I ever knew them."
A dead end. I said, "How did Moria react to Dr. Shapira's death?"
"Dr. Shapira? How do you—oh, of course, Paula again."
"Well?"
"How did she react? The same as the rest of us. It was a shock."
"What was their relationship like?"
She arched an eyebrow. "You think they were lovers?"
"You don't?"
She smiled her tiny, short-lived smile again. "No. Not a chance."
"Did Moria like him?"
"No, she didn't."
"Oh?" I said, thinking of the gun. "Why not?"
"She didn't appreciate his skills as a doctor."
"Was she as diplomatic as you when it came to criticizing doctors?"
It took her a second before she remembered what I was referring to. Another fleeting smile. "Much more so. Moria was better at keeping her thoughts to herself."
A woman of secrets, I thought.
"What did you think of Dr. Shapira?"
"That he was an arrogant fool. But that's nothing special. Many doctors are."
Now it was my turn to smile. "What did Dr. Shapira look like?"
"What does it matter?"
"A neighbor saw Moria's lover exit her building. I'm wondering if Dr. Shapira fits her description."
Naomi Hecht frowned. "Wouldn't it be easier to show her a picture of him? There's one in the hospital, I think."
I explained that the neighbor had seen the lover from the back, in the dark, so all I had were an approximate height and build and hair color.
"Ah, I understand," Naomi Hecht said. "Well, that's easy enough. Dr. Shapira was thin and about five eleven, six feet tall. He had black hair. Does that fit?"
"Pretty closely. You still don't think there was anything between him and Moria?"
She shook her head. "They were just two people who worked together. Nothing more."
Which was similar to what Paula had said, though Naomi Hecht had exhibited no outrage at the suggestion of romance between Moria and Dr. Shapira but found the notion amusing.
Perhaps both women were right. Maybe I was trying to force a connection where none existed.
Time for a change of subject.
"Did Moria know any unsavory people?" I asked.
"Unsavory? What does that mean?"
I searched for the right word, failed to find it, and finally settled on, "Suspicious."
Naomi Hecht narrowed her eyes, two faint lines etched between her eyebrows. "What are you getting at, Mr. Lapid?"
The gun. I was trying to understand the presence of the gun. It didn't fit. But I didn't want to ask about it directly.
"It's the note," I said. "Did you read it?"
Her face darkened. "Yes, I read it."
"What do you make of it?"
Her lower lip began trembling. It was odd to see, unexpected, far removed from her customary controlled firmness. When she spoke, her voice was husky with emotion, more than any she'd shown thus far. "That Moria was in a great deal of distress, that she was suffering terribly."
"Do you know what she was referring to, or whom?"
She shook her head, spreading both hands, palms up, in a show of resigned frustration. "I've thought about it over and over, probably a million times or more. I simply don't know. I feel that I should, but I don't."
Guilt, I thought, that insidious beast. I knew it well, my unwanted companion in the seven years that had passed since the end of the war in Europe.
"Tell me about that day," I said.
She took a deep breath, looked at her hands, then back up at me. "What do you want me to tell you?"
"Let's start by why you went to Moria's apartment."
"She didn't show up for her shift. That was unlike her. I don't think she missed a shift in two years. So I went to check on her."
"You had a key?"
"Yes."
"How come?"
"Moria gave it to me, in case she lost hers."
"You live close by?"
"A few minutes' walk. On the corner of Malachi and Zeharia."
"Okay. You unlocked the door, went inside, and then?"
"She hadn't been dead long. There was hardly any smell. I went into the living room and saw the note right away. It was—"
"Wait! The note was in the living room? Not in the bedroom?"
"In the living room. On the floor under the table. It was odd because everything else was so neat."
"The police report said the note was found on the bed."
"That's because of me. I read the note, understood what it was, and rushed into the bedroom with it in my hand. I saw the pill bottles. I saw Moria. I could tell she was dead at a glance."
"What did you do then?"
"Screamed. I screamed, but I don't remember what."
It was the word "no." That was what Lillian Shukrun had heard. The most primal, animalistic word in existence. A word of denial, of rejection, of defiance and rebellion. A hopeless word on that particular day, as on many others.
"What then?"
"I hurried to the bed, dropping the note. I checked her pulse, even though I knew it was pointless. Then I went to call for help. One of the neighbors was standing in the doorway, looking scared. She'd probably heard me scream. She told me where I could find a telephone. I called the police, and that was that."
I remembered Lillian telling me that Naomi Hecht did not cry that day, but now her eyes were glistening. I watched as a single tear escaped from each of her eyes, as her thumb caught the left one quickly, swiping it away, and how the right continued its journey unimpeded down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. Only then, with the taste of salt on her lips, did she become aware of it, wiped her cheek with her fingers, and finished the job with her napkin.
She sat like that for a minute or so, her face buried in the napkin. Her shoulders shuddered, but her weeping was oddly silent, as though she were choking her sobs so deep in her body that not a whisper of them survived.
I gave her the time she needed, waited until she lowered the napkin, revealing a face that was flushed, eyes dry but reddened. Her brief storm of emotion had roiled through her, but it had passed. She was collected again.
I said, "You told me everything was neat."
"Yes. Moria had cleaned everything. I don't know why."
"Were the windows open or closed?"
She shut her eyes, drew a deep breath. "Closed. No, that's not right. The one by the table in the living room was open a little. I remember the cold air blowing in, chilling me as I read the note."
That's how the note got under the table, I thought. Moria had left it there before going into the bedroom to die, and the wind coming through the open window had blown it off the table and onto the floor.