I gave him a smile that hinted at secrets. "Trust me on this, all right? I've been doing this for a long time."
He shifted his feet. "Half of the rooms are taken. I can't just let you go in them."
I looked behind him. There were nine key pegs all together. On eight of them hung long keys. Some of the guests apparently had left their keys behind when they'd gone on their daily tour of Jerusalem.
"You clean the rooms every day, don't you? Why don't you accompany me? It won't take long. I just need to take a quick look. Less than a minute in each room."
He scratched his chin, thought about it, then nodded hesitantly. "All right. A minute a room. Tops. And only once, okay?"
I nodded.
He motioned me to wait a moment, opened the office door, stuck his head in, and asked another clerk to man the counter while he showed me around. The other guy eyed me with interest but didn't ask any questions.
Yigal took the eight keys off their pegs and led the way up the staircase. Before he opened the first door, he turned to look at me and appeared on the verge of saying or asking something. I headed him off. "It's all right. You're coming in with me. A minute tops."
He bit his lower lip and then opened the door. The room was elegantly furnished with a double bed, two nightstands, a blond-wood closet, and a narrow desk with a straight-back chair. Through an open door to the left I could see the bathroom. It was small but nice.
I quickly crossed the bedroom, pulled open a glass door, and stepped out onto the balcony. A round metal table and two chairs took up its center. Below, an old bus was whizzing its way up the street. The balcony got a lot of sun at that time of the day, and I had to squint when I stared across the street at the apartment where Meir Abramo had lived and died.
The hotel room was lower than the Abramos' apartment, so I only got a partial view of the living room ceiling. I could not see the hook from which Meir Abramo had been hanged.
Yigal was biting a fingernail by the door. I smiled reassuringly at him.
"No need to look at any of the other rooms on this floor. Let's go up."
The first room on the second floor—identical in its decor to the one I'd seen on the first—was on the same level as the Abramos' apartment. But it was too far to the left to afford a clear view of the hook in its ceiling.
"Let's look at the others," I said to Yigal, who had moved on to another nail.
When I stepped on the balcony of the next room, I let out a slow exhalation. I could see the Abramos' living room clearly, all the way to the kitchen where Magda Abramo had prepared lunch. The hook was clearly visible, jutting down out of the ceiling in what now seemed to be a malevolent crooked grin.
I smiled at Yigal. "Now we're getting someplace."
He smiled back uncertainly, perplexed. He was clearly asking himself just what the hell was this policeman from Tel Aviv looking for, since there seemed to be nothing to see. And why the balconies? Why didn't he look at any of the rooms? I needed to finish with him quickly, before those questions found their way to his lips.
An open leather suitcase lay by the bed in the third room on the second floor, and toiletries were scattered by the bathroom sink. Yigal was clearly nervous at the signs of occupancy and I hastened my steps to the balcony. It also offered a clear view of the living room across the street, hook and all. Again I smiled at Yigal and without a word headed up the stairs to the third floor.
I only needed to examine the first room. It was too high. I got a downward view of the apartment where Meir Abramo had lived and died, and could not see any part of its ceiling.
"All right," I said to Yigal. "I've seen enough."
He let out a breath, hastily locked the door, and wiped a row of sweat drops from his forehead.
We descended the stairs to the lobby. He got behind the counter again, and his replacement disappeared into the office. Yigal hung the eight room keys back on their pegs, wiping his obviously damp hands on his pants when he was done.
"I need to see the register for the second and third rooms on the second floor. For the months of July and August."
He reached below the desk and brought out a large black book with a long red ribbon to mark your place. He set it on the counter, opened it, flipped back a few pages, and turned it to me.
"The first of July."
I nodded and began reading. He hovered over me, and I smiled at him and told him I could manage from here. He gave a curt nod and retreated to the end of the counter, where he started to arrange some papers into a pile.
Magda Abramo had discovered the body of her husband on August 21. That meant that his killer, if my theory about his spying on Abramo from this hotel was correct, had done so before that date. How long? I couldn't know for certain, but I guessed that once the killer had spotted the hook in the ceiling and decided upon the murder method, he had not dawdled for long. I bet that he stayed in the hotel during August. Certainly no earlier than July.
The register had three columns: a signature, room number, and the dates of stay. Only two rooms interested me—the second and third room on the second floor. I began copying names and dates into my notebook. I ended up with seven guests in total in July and ten in August. One of the August ten had begun his stay on the twenty-first, the day Abramo was found dead, and was, in fact, still a guest at the hotel. I crossed his name off my list. Nine were left. Another had arrived only yesterday. Eight.
I rubbed my chin, wondering how to winnow my list further.
How long would the killer have needed to spy on Abramo? Three, four days would have been enough, surely. He would have wanted his stay to be as brief as possible—less chance of being noticed. I was acting under the assumption that the killer and Abramo knew each other. This would explain how the killer knew of Magda's trip to her cousin. He'd chosen to strike when Abramo was alone.
I crossed off my list all the guests that had stayed in the hotel for five days or more. This left one such guest in July, three in August. The one in July had stayed for four days, the second of July to the sixth. Too far back. I crossed him off, too.
Three names remained. Three potential killers. I copied the names and dates to a new page in my notebook. Morris Brandeis, Samuel Cohen, Brian Deutch. I knew none of these names. Would Magda Abramo know them?
I motioned to Yigal. "I'm done with the register."
He grabbed it with greater speed than was warranted and stuck it under the counter.
"I hope you found what you needed," he said, in a tone of voice that made it clear that he didn't really care. He just wanted me gone.
"Do you authenticate the names of your guests?"
"Authenticate?"
"When they check in. Do you compare their passports or identification to the names they sign in the register?"
He looked astonished at the mere suggestion. "Whatever for?"
"So they won't be using false names," I said, with more patience than I felt.
"Look here, officer. I understand that you believe that your suspect, whoever he is, may have stayed here. Even if he did, this does not say anything about the character of this hotel or that of its guests. This is a respectable establishment, and our guests are fine, upstanding people. They are not the kind to use false names at hotels. Those kinds of people generally find their way to other, less reputable places."
His nostrils were practically flaring as he gave this little speech. I needed his cooperation for just a little while longer, so I apologized profusely.
"These three guests," I said, showing him the names I had copied into my notebook. "Do you remember them?"
He gave a cursory glance at the page.
"No."
"Take another look," I said flatly. "A longer one. Something may come to mind."
He exhaled loudly. Read the three names. "Nothing," he said.