"Please, Mr. Lapid, you have to help me." Ada paused, then added what I already knew to be true: "You don't have a choice. Either you kill my husband, or he'll soon kill you."
44
I made Ada Leitner no promises, just thanked her for the photographs and left. I wasn't sure what I'd do come evening. I had another matter to deal with first.
I found Daniel Shukrun at his uncle's locksmithing business on Shamai Street. The place was crowded with locks and keys of all sizes, and the smell of oil and metal thickened the air.
Daniel was alone at the front of the shop, bent over a counter, peering at a key-cutting machine.
"Hello, Daniel," I said, and caught the flitting glitter of fear in his eyes as his head swept up and he saw me.
"Adam," he said, smiling awkwardly, wiping his hands clean on a cloth, "what... what are you doing here?"
"Is your uncle here?" I said, looking through an open door behind the counter, seeing more tools and equipment but no movement.
"He went home. Didn't feel well. Why?"
Instead of answering, I turned to the street door and flipped the Open sign to its opposite side. Turning back, I reached into my pocket and brought out the gun that I'd once thought was Moria's.
"Because of this," I said.
He blanched, and a massive exhalation fled his lungs, as though he'd been holding his breath for weeks. He leaned heavily on the counter. A big man bowing under the weight of uncovered secrets.
"How did you find out?"
"I learned none of your aunts are dead."
He looked at me blankly. "My aunts?"
I reminded him of what he'd told me after I punched him in Moria's apartment. "A pointless lie. You could have just said you heard noises and came to check. You didn't need to embellish."
He made a helpless gesture with his hands. "I got nervous. I really did think you'd come to rob the place. I was furious with you, and I was worried you'd find the gun."
"That's why you came back to wash the mud off the floor, isn't it? To sneak a peek into the bedroom and see if I'd removed the bedside cabinet?"
"Yes."
"I should have realized it soon after," I said, more than a little angry with myself, "when I saw you didn't bother washing the lobby or stairs. I thought you cleaned the apartment because of Moria, that you felt beholden to her. But you didn't care for her one bit."
He shook his head forcefully, and his expression turned imploring. "That's not true. I admired her. I was grateful to her."
"Then why stash a murder weapon in her apartment?"
"It was the only place I could think of. I couldn't keep it in my home. Lillian notices everything."
"Why not keep the gun here in the store?"
"My uncle likes rearranging stuff. Every once in a while, he moves everything around. Besides, I wanted the gun close to home so I could reach it in a hurry."
It sounded flimsy. Daniel's motivation was likely different and selfish. He didn't want the gun anywhere connected with him in case the police found it.
"Why Moria's apartment? Why not one of the others in the building?" I asked.
"She lived alone, and she worked long hours, including several nights a week, and it was easy to find out when she was on shift. And I knew when she was in. When I'm home, I can hear every step someone takes in her apartment. It was the perfect place."
"Weren't you worried Lillian would hear you up there?"
"I hardly ever went there, and I always chose a time when Lillian was out or fast asleep. There's also the fact that the other neighbor on the third floor is old and nearly deaf and blind. He wouldn't see or hear me go into Moria's apartment."
"Didn't you stop to think of the trouble Moria might find herself in if the police found that gun in her apartment after you killed Dr. Shapira?"
"Why would they suspect her? She was a woman who wouldn't hurt a soul."
"Because she worked with him, and because she and Dr. Shapira had locked horns several times. He tried to have her fired. He disapproved of her habit of undermining his authority by talking directly to the parents of patients. Like she did with you. Lillian told me about it. She said Moria had warned you that the surgery Dr. Shapira recommended for your son was risky, an experimental procedure, but that Dr. Shapira insisted on doing it, and you relented."
A paternal wave of rage coiled through Daniel's features. "He assured us it would go without a hitch, that we had nothing to worry about. We later learned it was the first time he'd performed such a surgery. He wanted the acclaim of being the first surgeon in Israel to do it. My son died because of him."
"Is that when you decided to kill him?"
He shook his head. "First we went to talk to him. If he'd only apologized, explained himself, showed some remorse, that might have been the end of it, but instead he was very rude to us. He behaved as though we were a nuisance. So we went to the head of the ward, Dr. Yosef Leitner, to complain. I thought he'd fire Dr. Shapira. Instead, he backed him fully. He told us Dr. Shapira was a respected surgeon. He was very angry that we were bothering him at all. It didn't seem to matter to him that our son was dead. Lillian was crushed. She didn't get out of bed for weeks."
You must have been crushed too, I thought, but like men the world over, you kept it shoved deep inside you, where it festered, spawning a hatred so keen it had to be satiated.
"You planned this for a long time, didn't you?" I asked.
He nodded. "There were weeks in which it was the only thing I could think of. At first, it was just a powerful desire for vengeance, but I didn't think I'd act on it. But it grew into something harder, sharper, like a tumor that I had to cut out or it would kill me. So I started planning how I'd do it. It wasn't easy, but I managed to buy a gun. I told myself I'd wait a year before I used it so the guy I bought it from wouldn't connect the shooting to me."
"You had a lot of patience."
"Waiting was hard, but I wanted to get away with it." His eyes met mine, but there was no animosity in them, only resignation. "If you hadn't come along, I would have."
"I'm sorry for what happened to your son, Daniel. And I wish Moria were still alive so I wouldn't be here."
"Me too. She was a good woman. Did you find out why she killed herself?"
"It'll take too long to explain, and I'm not here for that."
"No." Daniel sighed. "I suppose you're not."
"You said you planned to wait a year, but it took you nearly two to kill Dr. Shapira. Why so long?"
A wavering smile lived and died on Daniel's lips. "Lillian was pregnant, and then Dina was born, and I hoped the new child would help me get over the death of the old one. But she didn't. The urge to get even kept growing. So I resumed planning. I'd tell Lillian I was working at night, and I'd wait outside the hospital and follow Dr. Shapira home. I did this for several months; I wanted there to be no mistakes. I decided winter would be the right season for the killing. Most people are at home, so there would be less risk of witnesses. I decided to make it look like a robbery so the police wouldn't think the killer was after Dr. Shapira specifically."
"You did a good job," I said. "Taking the belt was a nice touch."
Daniel didn't seem to have heard me. He was back on that night, reliving the realization of his dreams of revenge.
"It was very cold. Waiting outside the hospital was difficult, but I'd made up my mind. I was determined to go through with it. I followed Dr. Shapira through a light rain. There were barely any people about. Off in the distance there was a lightning storm, and I remember thinking how perfect it was; maybe the shots would be mistaken for thunder.