I looked at his damaged arm, limp, burned, his fingers forever curled like tearing claws.
"You couldn't string him up yourself. Not with one functioning hand. Even if you incapacitated him in some way that the police wouldn't notice, it would have been impossible. Putting the rope around his neck is easy. Hoisting him up, not so much. You had to have someone else do it for you. And I don't think you had an accomplice. So there was only one person left—Meir Abramo himself."
He stared at me, his face emotionless. All except his eyes, which were raging.
If I hadn't been looking for it, I wouldn't have caught it—that slight twitch in his right eyelid. Other than that, he was impassive.
"But he wasn't about to hang himself. Abramo had his problems, just like all of us—that's what he was coming to you for—but he was a happy man, in general. You had to make him do it. But how? I have a theory about that. Want to hear it?"
I leaned forward, staring at him eyeball to eyeball. "You threatened his family. Maybe you didn't plan it in advance. Maybe you came to his apartment, armed somehow—it would have to be a gun, a knife wouldn't be threatening enough, not with your hand—and you told Abramo to hang himself or you'd shoot him. Naturally, he refused. What's the point of killing yourself to avoid being murdered? Which left you with two options. First, you could just shoot him, but then the police would investigate. Or second, you had to come up with some other threat to make him do it. His family. I think you told him that if he didn't hang himself, you'd shoot him and then kill his wife and baby. I'm right, aren't I?"
His eyes moved left and down. Then his good hand followed, jerking open a drawer and reaching into it.
I was on my feet in an instant, reaching over the desk. I grabbed his hand, pinning it down in the drawer.
"That was foolish," I said.
He grimaced in pain, his bad hand twitching helplessly on the desk, the other caught in my grip.
"What do you have there? A gun? The gun you used to threaten Abramo?"
He didn't answer me. He tried jerking his hand away, but I held onto him easily. I twisted his wrist sharply, and over his cry of pain, I heard a dull thud as something solid thumped into the bottom of the drawer.
Still gripping his hand, I came around the desk, wrenched his hand out of the drawer, and yanked it open with my left hand.
A revolver rested within. Small, dark-brown grip, matte-black barrel and trigger guard. I pulled it out, hefting it in my hand. It was much lighter than my Luger. A smaller caliber, a .38. Five shots. Less than the eight the Luger carried, but it didn't take a lot of bullets to kill a man. Not if you got him in the head or the chest.
I let go of his arm and went around the desk once more. I remained standing. I put the gun in my jacket pocket. Kept my hand on it.
"But first you had him write his own suicide note," I said. "Did you dictate it for him? Because his wife didn't think it sounded like him." My arms tingled with the adrenaline his reach for the gun had produced. There was a bad taste in my mouth when I thought of how Abramo must have felt—scared and humiliated and desperate to protect his family from this madman.
"With Yosef Kaplon this was not possible. He had no family. No one for you to threaten. You couldn't have forced him into suicide. You had to do it yourself. But with that—" I motioned at his useless hand "—you were powerless. You could perform a simple murder. Shoot him to death. But you wanted another suicide, quickly and quietly swept aside by the police. You needed to incapacitate him before you cut his wrists. That was quite a feat. How did you do it?"
What happened then was not uncommon. I'd seen it before as a policeman while interrogating suspects. His pride overcame his caution. He was proud of himself, proud of his crimes. He wanted to bask in whatever glory he felt they had brought him.
"I injected him with a narcotic. Near-immediate incapacitation. He crumpled like a rag doll. Right there in his living room."
I nodded, more to myself than to him. It was how I figured he'd done it. I didn't point out that leaving Kaplon in his living room was a mistake. Most people sliced their wrists in their bathtub—which Kaplon's apartment did not have—or in bed. Perhaps he had not considered this. Or perhaps he had been unable to move Kaplon's body to the bed with only one good arm and decided it was not important.
"You slit his wrists the right way," I said, knowing he would appreciate the compliment. "Vertical cuts. Not a lot of people know it's the better way."
"I'm a doctor," he said with a shrug, seemingly unaware of the absurdity of his words. I could tell he was pleased with my appreciation of him.
"And the suicide note?"
"I wrote it myself," he said.
"How did you know about Kaplon's mother?"
"From one of his letters to Abramo. I knew about his existence earlier, of course. Abramo told me about him, gushed about how talented he was, how well they could play together, and so on. But the letter gave me what I needed to personalize his note. Just in case he'd told someone else about his mother and that person ended up reading the note." A half smile flared on his mouth. "I worked hard on getting his handwriting perfect. I made fifty drafts before I was satisfied with his suicide note. Still, I was thorough. I went through the drawers and removed anything with his handwriting on it."
Realization dawned on me. "The grocery list in his pants…"
His smile broadened. "I planted it. Nice touch, don't you think?"
"Very nice," I said, reining the urge to slap the smile off his face. I wanted the whole story. No point in stopping his confession midstream.
"It fooled you, didn't it?"
I nodded. I felt a bit sick, and angry, at myself and at him. I masked all my emotions. Still, he grinned triumphantly at me.
"How did you get into his apartment?" I asked.
"It was very easy. All I needed was the proper bait. It was the exact same one I used on Abramo—music. Both of these wretched men wanted nothing more than to play music for a living. During one of our sessions, I told Abramo that I was thinking about financially backing an orchestra and that I hoped he could be in it. I asked him not to tell anyone about it, for the time being, and asked whether he could recommend other musicians. That's how I got Kaplon's name. That's how I knew where I could find him playing. It was also how I got into Abramo's apartment. I told him I would be in Jerusalem on Sunday, August 20, and that I would like to hear him play before I hired him for the orchestra. He was eager. It was his dream to be a professional musician. He was as happy as a child on his birthday when I came to kill him."
Feinstein smiled broadly. He was gloating now, relishing every memory.
"I got Kaplon the same way. I baited him, told him I was looking for a violinist for the orchestra. It was right after he played at that Hungarian café. I waited on the street outside. It took him a long time to come out. I approached him on the street, complimented him on his performance, said I was in Tel Aviv for that night only. If he wanted to be in the orchestra, we had to talk then. We went to his apartment, and I injected him when his back was turned. Simple."
"You didn't take anything."
"Of course not. This wasn't about money. I'm no thief."
No, I thought. The only thing you steal are people's lives and the happiness of their families.
"Then what was it about? What made you murder these three men?"
His back stiffened.
"You call it murder," he said. "I call it justice."
"Justice for what? You hadn't even met Kaplon when you decided to kill him, and Zinger and Abramo were your patients. These men caused you no harm."