"You look better," I said. "I gather the night went well."
Her eyes were no longer reddened and the bags under her eyes had cleared. She was wearing a white calf-length dress that left a ribbon of untanned skin exposed across her collarbone and upper chest. Her hair was loose around her shoulders.
"First time since Meir died that I slept through the night. You were right. David is much better. I guess I got carried away."
"It happens to all parents with their first child."
There was an awkward silence as we both realized that there would be no more children after David. Not with Meir Abramo.
She brought me some tea and I sat on the sofa. She sat on the carpet, her legs tucked to one side, her slender hand caressing David's fine, thin hair. I watched them together and came to the realization that grief was made easier by having other people to live for. By having a family.
Magda said, "I think I feel better not just because of David. It is also because of your visit yesterday. Reading the letters was part of it, but the main thing is knowing that Meir did not commit suicide. It changes things. It may be selfish of me, but it does. Previously, I felt guilty, as if I had failed him. Now I simply feel sad."
"I'm glad to have helped," I said. "And I hope you can help me some more today. I went to see Mr. Shitrit yesterday after I left here, and he told me that your husband may have been planning to quit his job in the near future. Do you know anything about that?"
She shook her head. "It wasn't Meir's greatest ambition, selling clothes, but he never told me he was thinking about quitting." She paused, frowning. "Come to think of it, there was something, a week or ten days before he died. He was whistling in the kitchen, some lively tune I'd never heard before. He sounded very happy, happier than I had seen him in a long while. When I asked him what got him so cheerful, he winked at me, told me I would have to wait just a little bit longer. 'It's good news,' he said. 'The very best of news.' I tried to get it out of him, but he was firm, told me I would have to wait. I let it go." She let out a short laugh. "You know, it's funny, but that conversation had totally slipped my mind till right now."
"Mr. Shitrit said that your husband used the phrase 'a new opportunity.' Know anything about that?"
"No. But it can only mean one thing. His music. Something was in the works regarding his music. That's the only thing 'the very best news' could mean."
"You think he was about to get a job playing the flute?"
"It sounds like it to me. He may have withheld telling me about it to spare me the disappointment if nothing came of it."
I nodded, more to myself than to her. I had a feeling that this 'new opportunity' was important somehow. It was something that changed shortly before Abramo's murder, and he had kept it a secret not just from his employer but from his wife as well. But for now I could not say what it was or how it was connected to his death. I leaned further back in the sofa, tilting my head up, letting my thoughts ramble. My eyes fell on the hook from which Meir Abramo had been hanged. It was a curious, alien thing. Out of place in this low-rent apartment. Surely an uncommon fixture in that neighborhood, if not the entire city.
I sat up straight.
"Did you two have any visitors?" I asked. "Prior to Meir's death, I mean."
"Hardly any," she said. "Mrs. Hersch dropped over from time to time, of course. Mr. Shitrit came over for dinner once. I had a few of the neighborhood mothers over a few times, but the last time was months ago."
"No one recent? No one new?"
"No."
"Could Meir have brought someone over?"
"Unlikely. I was here pretty much whenever he was. Where are you going with this? You think it was someone we knew? A friend or guest?"
"It's a possibility," I said. "The rope that Meir was hanged with, was it his? Did he keep rope in the apartment?"
She shook her head.
"You never saw it before?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
I pointed at the hook.
"The killer knew about that," I said. "If you didn't have rope in the apartment, it means the killer came here with it. He had the murder method all planned out. If he'd never been in here, how could he have known about the hook?"
She didn't answer, following me with her eyes as I rose from the sofa and went over to stand directly underneath the hook. I looked up at it, then lowered my eyes and stared directly out the open glass doors to the balcony and beyond. My gaze landed on the hotel balconies across the street. There were nine balconies in total, three to each floor above ground level. At the moment, all nine were deserted. Some of them probably afforded a pretty good view of the room I stood in. And of the hook lodged in its ceiling.
The ground floor of the Hatikva hotel was divided into two parts: a dining room and a lobby, with a smooth stone staircase in between. The dining room was small and inviting and also served as a restaurant for the general public. The staircase had a steel railing and a cascading red carpet that covered about two-thirds of each step. The lobby contained two sets of couches, a number of heavy armchairs, tables strewn with newspapers, and a reception counter. On either end of the counter stood a vase full of fragrant colorful flowers. A door marked OFFICE—PRIVATE stood closed behind the counter, and in between was a slim man with a thin mustache, dressed in black slacks, white shirt, and a black blazer. He was scribbling on a piece of paper with a look of determined diligence on his narrow face. A sign on the counter said his name was Yigal.
I introduced myself and told him I wanted to take a tour of the hotel.
"A tour? Why?"
"I'm looking for someone who might have stayed here recently. Do you keep a record of your guests?"
"Yes. They sign the register. But we don't share the names of our guests with anyone. It's a matter of privacy. I'm sure you understand."
I leaned in closer over the counter, getting a noseful of the cologne he'd overused that morning, and in my tough-and-impatient-policeman voice said, "Look. I'm trying to save your hotel a pile of embarrassment, but I'll need your cooperation to do that. You see, I came all the way from Tel Aviv today because of a criminal investigation I'm conducting. I believe my prime suspect may have been staying in this hotel sometime during August. Now, I can make a big scene out of it, maybe call a reporter friend of mine in Davar, and the entire country will read about how your hotel is frequented by violent criminals. Or you and I can handle this quietly, and when I arrest this guy, I'll make sure to keep your name and the name of your hotel out of it. Which will it be, Yigal?"
I stressed his name at the end of my little speech, just to drive home the fact that this could become personally, and not just professionally, embarrassing. He blinked and didn't even ask to see my identification. Most civilians were like that—they wouldn't dream of impersonating a policeman, so they assumed other people wouldn't do it either.
"What did this man do?" Yigal asked quietly, his eyes sliding from side to side.
"The less you know, the better. At least until I catch this guy. In fact, it would be smart of you to keep quiet about my visit. You wouldn't want this to reach the wrong ears. It's safer this way. All right?"
He gulped and nodded. He had a prominent Adam's apple and it bobbed like an apple in a water barrel.
"What is the name of your suspect?" he asked. "I'll check the register."
"He's been known to use all sorts of names. But first I want to see the rooms."
"Do you think he left anything? Because we clean the rooms between guests."